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Pronunciation varies by accent · noun
A word placed below another, either literally or metaphorically: a subtext; an inadequate or subordinate term or description; a secret word or phrase; a watchword.
The soldier hesitated, and seemed to mistrust the party; he raised his lantern, and cast a scrutinising look at them, but an underword and a mysterious look of recognition removed his doubts, and they passed on.
Such underwords of nature thrill With wonder and with mystery; The wind has blown them from the hill, The waves have whispered to the sea; And nature all is manifold Akin with lore we cannot tell, [...]
Just as the theory of aggregate demand sank to an “underword” of debate, so too did the sociology of fertility, once Nassau Senior and Richard Jones had completed the substitution of the psychological for the physiological interpretation.
Cordial for cordial, issue for issue, kiss for kiss, stain for stain, grace for grace, wooing for wooing, warmth for heat: each echo arises to its invocation as a kind of “underword,” a ghost word to be laid and replaced by the strength of the scene to which it is summoned.
To emphasize this point, Blake actually buries the text underground, and worms, rather than plant tendrils, divide the stanzas. And at the base of the plate, in the "underword" that has been created through devotion to a specific idea of death, we see the coffin, covered with turf, and marked with criss-crossed briars.
They are invisible fosterers in the sense that neither is named within the text. Each speaks an underword - italicised to indicate its fragmentary, translated nature - [...]
While to that voice amid those memories heard Answered her underword, No wonder if the Eternal Presence then Seemed mute no more to men, [...]
Beautiful is an underword to describe you, [...]
Use underword when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Underword means A word placed below another, either literally or metaphorically: a subtext; an inadequate or subordinate term or description; a secret word or phrase; a watchword.
The closest synonym depends on the sentence and intended sense.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
The soldier hesitated, and seemed to mistrust the party; he raised his lantern, and cast a scrutinising look at them, but an underword and a mysterious look of recognition removed his doubts, and they passed on.
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