Word.ws English Dictionary

undertoad

undertoad noun: an underlying threat of disaster beneath the surface of everyday life.

Noun

undertoad (plural undertoads)

  1. An underlying threat of disaster beneath the surface of everyday life.
    • Fully two thirds of the earth's surface is covered by water. The other one third is covered by a crack team of investigative reporters led by a crusty old bureau chief. This very fact means that the subject of water is fraught with grave political undertoads.1979, New West - Volume 4, Issues 14-20, page 11
    • But the European framework has, as John Irving would say, 'an undertoad'. Kings in Conflict and Ireland's Fate both underscore the painful conclusion that Ireland, her rights and wrongs, was of little or no consequence within what was seen by...1990, Fortnight - Issues 280-290, page 21
  2. A mythical monster that lurks underwater to catch unwary swimmers; a personification of an undertow.
    • It was that undertoad what took old Bill's boy clean under the water and never brung him back up,” reminisced Will.2004, Joan Cox, To Love, Honor and Obey, →ISBN, page 36
    • “Baby, watch out for the undertoad.” I just had this vision of this big toad out there waiting to grab me and take me off to Cuba. She kept saying the undertoad was in the water.2005, Kathy Ann Chandler, Honeysuckle Memories, Bitterweed Times, →ISBN, page 25

Examples of undertoad in a sentence

  • While attempting to plumb the intensity of my feelings about the “deep dark secrets,” known by absolutely everyone, I have been reminded of the “undertoad.”2013, Ann Todd Jealous, Caroline T. Haskell, Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief about Racism, →ISBN:
  • Parents would warn the small children to stay out of the water or the "undertoads" might get them.2009, Robert L. Anderson, The Life, Beliefs and Divine Detours of a Tennessee Mountain Man, →ISBN, page 292:
  • He says something about an undertoad and sometimes that happens in Lake Michigan.2014, Deborah Emin, Scags at 7, →ISBN:

Forms of undertoad

pluralundertoads

Origin of undertoad

From John Irving's 1978 novel The World According to Garp, in which the title character's son Walt mishears warnings about the undertow at the beach as warnings about an "under toad", causing the title character to subsequently use the phrase "under toad" to refer to the omnipresent threat of disaster that lies beneath the surface of everyday life.

Questions about undertoad

What does undertoad mean?
Undertoad means an underlying threat of disaster beneath the surface of everyday life.
How do you use undertoad in a sentence?
While attempting to plumb the intensity of my feelings about the “deep dark secrets,” known by absolutely everyone, I have been reminded of the “undertoad.”
What part of speech is undertoad?
Undertoad is a noun.
What is the plural of undertoad?
The plural of undertoad is undertoads.

Words near undertoad in the dictionary

  1. undertints
  2. undertip
  3. undertipped
  4. undertipping
  5. undertips
  6. undertoad
  7. undertoads
  8. undertoasted
  9. undertone
  10. undertoned
  11. undertones

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: undertoad (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-undertoad.wav.

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