Word.ws English Dictionary

underspeak

underspeak verb: to speak with understatement and/or modesty.

Verb

underspeak (third-person singular simple present underspeaks, present participle underspeaking, simple past underspoke, past participle underspoken)

  1. To speak with understatement and/or modesty.
    • Dentists often underspeak and therefore underrate dental conditions. Patients interpret these words to mean there is no problem, only to be surprised later when they learn treatment will be required.2002, Dental Economics - Volume 92, Issues 7-12, page 46
    • He underspoke them. A chanteuse is supposed to “sell” the song. Andy, like Blossom, stinted the standard, gave it less, in order to give (secretly) more.2009, Kenneth Goldsmith, I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews
  2. To fail to say enough; to be too taciturn.
    • By a remarkable analysis of what he called Churchill's "peculiar gift of overwriting and underspeaking," Burton also managed to leave us — as after one of Sir Winston's own speeches — with a feeling of love and of thanks for the privilege of living in the same age with Churchill.1965, TV Guide, page 33
    • Ronald Hall, in “Mishearing, Misreading, and the Language of Listening.” focusses on the way Austen's characters underspeak and overhear or overspeak and underhear, causing a comedy of misunderstanding that ultimately resolves itself throuhg the attainment of proper modes of listening.2002, Bruce Stovel, Lynn Weinlos, Lynn Weinlos Gregg, The Talk in Jane Austen, page xxi
  3. To speak without sufficient emphasis or volume.
    • She was obviously nervous, and consequently underacted and underspoke her part several times ; yet, with her musical speech and natural manner, she should be a considerable acquisition to the company.1912, The Academy and Literature - Volume 83, page 25
    • The surest way to make it seem that an actor is overacting and being too noisy is for all the others in the cast to underspeak, clip their words, and underact—not only in relation to the actor in question, but to underact each other.1941, Frayne Williams, Mr. Shakespeare of The Globe, page 146
  4. To speak at the same time as and more quietly than another.
    • Today subliminal messages are sent by “underspeaking" on television, radio, and records and “invisigraph" (invisible messages) on printed ads.1985, Richard G. Lazar, Menahem Davyd Lazar, Beyond 1984: The Vassar Symposium, page 63
    • A good deal of what transpires is characters at cross-purposes, underspeaking, talking past each other.2003, Barbara Green, King Saul's Asking, page 34

Noun

underspeak (uncountable)

  1. Speech that is characterized by understatement.
    • But that really is a piece of marketing underspeak for this fantastic fetid backplot.2003, Kate Fowle, Deborah Smith, To be Continued: Artists' Interventions Into the Public Realm, page 55
    • For some people growing up then, Coward was a bit of a mystery: his later plays were not very good; his pose as a model of cool manners was regarded as effete or snobbish; and the well-intentioned determination to get down to the nitty-gritty left little room for Coward. He and the underspeak of...2014, David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary Of Film 6th Edition

Examples of underspeak in a sentence

  • I do beg you to underspeak about the spread or work of I.C.L.2018, Norman Percy Grubb, Modern Viking:
  • There is a fine line between overspeaking and underspeaking; planning and practice help the spokesperson determine that line2010, Kathleen Fearn-Banks, Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach:
  • At one point after the play had been playing for several years, I went to see it, and found that they were all trying to underplay Fonda— even to underspeak him.1973, John Springer, Fonda's Films and Careers of Henry, Jane and Peter Fonda, page 20:
  • The test level can help prevent you from "booming," "blasting, " or "underspeaking" so you cannot comfortably be heard.1981, Roy A. Beck, Radio Speaking, page 19:

Forms of underspeak

third-person singular presentunderspeaks
present participleunderspeaking
pastunderspoke
past participleunderspoken

Origin of underspeak

From under- + speak.

Questions about underspeak

What does underspeak mean?
Underspeak means to speak with understatement and/or modesty.
How do you use underspeak in a sentence?
I do beg you to underspeak about the spread or work of I.C.L.
What part of speech is underspeak?
Underspeak can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of underspeak?
The past tense of underspeak is underspoke.

Words near underspeak in the dictionary

  1. undersowed
  2. undersowing
  3. undersown
  4. undersows
  5. undersparred
  6. underspeak
  7. underspeaking
  8. underspeaks
  9. underspecies
  10. underspecific
  11. underspecification

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: underspeak (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-underspeak.wav.

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