Word.ws English Dictionary

underserved

UK/ˌʌndəˈsɜːvd//ˌʌndɚˈsɝvd/

underserved adjective: underresourced; not having sufficient service. Also the simple past and past participle of underserve.

Adjective

underserved (comparative more underserved, superlative most underserved)

  1. Underresourced; not having sufficient service.
    • Many families who live paycheck-to-paycheck are currently underserved by the financial services industry.
    1. Disadvantaged with regard to health services because of inability to pay, inability to access care, or other disparities for reasons of race, religion, language group or social status.
    2. Poorly served.
      • It's too early to say precisely which corridors it will use, but TS notes a potential focus on underserved areas with poor connectivity - a need to improve access to the city centre, hospitals, colleges, employment centres, shopping centres and leisure facilities.2021 February 24, Philip Haigh, “A shift from cars: Scotland's railways are friends of electric!”, in RAIL, number 925, page 31

Also used as

underserved is also the simple past and past participle of underserve.

Forms of underserved

comparativemore underserved
superlativemost underserved
alternative formunder-served

Origin of underserved

From under- + served.

From underserve + -ed.

Words formed from underserved

Questions about underserved

What does underserved mean?
Underserved means underresourced; not having sufficient service.
What part of speech is underserved?
Underserved is an adjective.
How do you pronounce underserved?
Underserved is pronounced /ˌʌndəˈsɜːvd/ (UK).

Words near underserved in the dictionary

  1. undersent
  2. undersequenced
  3. underservant
  4. underservants
  5. underserve
  6. underserved
  7. underserves
  8. underserviced
  9. underserving
  10. underset
  11. undersets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: underserved (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underserved.wav.

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