underpromise
underpromise verb: to promise less than one expects to do.
Verb
underpromise (third-person singular simple present underpromises, present participle underpromising, simple past and past participle underpromised)
- To promise less than one expects to do.
- “He’s wise not to overpromise, but to underpromise and overdeliver,” said Dave Checketts, a former president of the Knicks and then Madison Square Garden who left in 2001 after a power struggle with James L. Dolan, the chairman of the Garden.2008 April 4, Richard Sandomir, “Fixing a Broken Dream One Night at a Time”, in New York Times
Forms of underpromise
| third-person singular present | underpromises |
|---|---|
| present participle | underpromising |
| past participle | underpromised |
| past | underpromised |
Origin of underpromise
From under- + promise.
Words formed from underpromise
Questions about underpromise
- What does underpromise mean?
- Underpromise means to promise less than one expects to do.
- What part of speech is underpromise?
- Underpromise is a verb.
- What is the past tense of underpromise?
- The past tense of underpromise is underpromised.
Words near underpromise in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: underpromise (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underpromise.wav.
Cite this entry: “underpromise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/underpromise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.