Word.ws English Dictionary

underground railroad

underground railroad noun: a clandestine network used to exfiltrate dissidents out of their country.

Noun

underground railroad (plural underground railroads)

  1. A clandestine network used to exfiltrate dissidents out of their country.
    • The trio quickly went underground, hiding in a friend’s house in their home city of Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East, while seeking a way to escape the country and potentially lengthy prison sentences. That brought them to a group called In Transit, part of an extensive underground railroad that...2023 February 14, Neil MacFarquhar, Alina Lobzina, “Secretive Network Rescues Russia’s Antiwar Dissidents in Nick of Time”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 24 Feb 2023
    • The supporting players include Regina Hall as Deandra, one of the original French 75, and Benicio Del Toro as Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, a martial-arts instructor who helps run an underground railroad for migrants.2025 September 25, Manohla Dargis, “‘One Battle After Another’ Review: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Rallying Cry”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived...

Proper noun capitalized: Underground Railroad

the Underground Railroad

  1. (historical) The pre-American Civil War anti-slavery resistance movement dedicated to helping escaped slaves to reach safe territory.

Forms of underground railroad

Noun
pluralunderground railroads
Proper noun
alternative formUnderground Railway

Origin of underground railroad

After the historical Underground Railroad in the United States.

Questions about underground railroad

What does underground railroad mean?
Underground railroad means a clandestine network used to exfiltrate dissidents out of their country.
What part of speech is underground railroad?
Underground railroad can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of underground railroad?
The plural of underground railroad is underground railroads.

Words near underground railroad in the dictionary

  1. underground handballs
  2. underground handpass
  3. underground handpasses
  4. underground mutton
  5. underground people
  6. underground railroad
  7. underground railroads
  8. underground railway
  9. underground railways
  10. undergrounded
  11. undergrounder

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: underground railroad (page history and authors); Underground Railroad (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “underground railroad.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/underground_railroad. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.