Word.ws English Dictionary

underlying

underlying adjective: lying underneath. Also the present participle and gerund of underlie.

Adjective

underlying (not comparable)

  1. (literal) Lying underneath.
    • We dug down to the underlying rock.
    • Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
      ⁠That name the under-lying dead,
      ⁠Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
      Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto II”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
  2. Basic or fundamental.
    • Points and straight lines are underlying elements of geometry.
    • Finding a successful treatment for Alzheimer’s faces two major hurdles: the first being we still don’t know enough about the disease’s underlying biology.2018 January 18, Jürgen Götz, “Why it’s so hard to treat dementia”, in CNN
  3. Implicit.
    • Many nursery rhymes have an underlying meaning.

Noun

underlying (plural underlyings)

  1. The entity from whose performance a derivative derives its value.

Also used as

underlying is also the present participle and gerund of underlie.

underlying meaning in Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Punjabi

underlying in Telugu

అంతర్లీన

underlying in Malayalam

അന്തർലീനമായ

underlying in Kannada

ಆಧಾರವಾಗಿರುವ

underlying in Punjabi

ਅੰਡਰਲਾਈੰਗ, ਅੰਡਰਲਾਈਰਿੰਗ

Examples of underlying in a sentence

  • During the track renewals, advantage was taken to redrain the area and the old spent ballast was removed down to the underlying rock, new ballast and drains being provided throughout.1950 January, “Re-Signalling at Liverpool Lime Street Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 43:
  • Sometimes, the underlying layers are exposed by erosion, revealing the story of the rocks like an open book.2012, Chinle Miller, In Mesozoic Lands: The Mesozoic Geology of Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Kindle edition:
  • The underlying problem with transport policy is that there no coherent strategy.2020 December 2, Christian Wolmar, “Wales offers us a glimpse of an integrated transport policy”, in Rail, page 56:

All 40 example sentences with underlying

Forms of underlying

pluralunderlyings

Origin of underlying

By surface analysis, underlie + -ing.

Words formed from underlying

Phrases with underlying

Questions about underlying

What does underlying mean?
Underlying means lying underneath.
What is underlying in Telugu?
Underlying in Telugu is అంతర్లీన. See Underlying meaning in Telugu.
How do you use underlying in a sentence?
During the track renewals, advantage was taken to redrain the area and the old spent ballast was removed down to the underlying rock, new ballast and drains being provided throughout.
What part of speech is underlying?
Underlying can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near underlying in the dictionary

  1. underluminosity
  2. underluminous
  3. underly
  4. underlye
  5. underlyes
  6. underlying
  7. underlying form
  8. underlying forms
  9. underlying functor
  10. underlying functors
  11. underlying set

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: underlying (page history and authors); underlying (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); underlying (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); underlying (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); underlying (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-underlying.wav.

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