undergird

Verb

undergird (third-person singular simple present undergirds, present participle undergirding, simple past and past participle undergirded or undergirt)

1. To strengthen, secure, or reinforce by passing a rope, cable, or chain around the underside of an object.
2. (figuratively) To give fundamental support; provide with a sound or secure basis; provide supportive evidence for.
   • For fiction, documentary, verse, and essay, she undergirds entertaining images and stories with profound themes of ecological responsibility and challenge to the suppression of human rights.2015, Mary Ellen Snodgrass, Barbara Kingsolver: A Literary Companion, McFarland, →ISBN, page 3
   • “I’m not being cynical about Tim Scott individually. I am maybe suggesting that the rhetoric of ‘can’t we all get along?’ – and those quotes you made about, you know, from my speech in 2004 about there’s a ‘United States of America’ – that has to be undergirded with an honest accounting of our past...2023 June 15, Chandelis Duster, “There has to be ‘honest accounting’ of US past and present within Republican Party, Obama says”, in CNN, archived from the original on 30 Jun 2023
3. To lend moral support to.
4. To secure below or underneath.