Under Meaning
/ˈʌndə/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
prepBeneath; below; at or to the bottom of, or the area covered or surmounted by.
prepBeneath; below; at or to the bottom of, or the area covered or surmounted by., Below the surface of.
Sentence Examples
I accept, but only under one condition.
The ice will give under your weight.
He pulled up the covers and crawled under.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
The cat hid ____ the table, not on top or beside it.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I found my lost keys ____ the couch in the living room while I was searching for my mobile phone today.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English under, from Old English under, from Proto-West Germanic *undar, from Proto-Germanic *under, from a merger of Proto-Indo-European *(H)n̥dʰér (“under”) and *h₁entér (“inside”). Cognate with German unter, Dutch onder, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish under, Faroese and Icelandic undir; also Old High German untar (“under”), Sanskrit अन्तर् (antar, “within”), Latin infrā (“below, beneath”) and inter (“between, among”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The little boys in the front bedroom had thrown off their blankets and lay under the sheets."
— 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC:
"Nanny Broome was looking up at the outer wall. Just under the ceiling there were three lunette windows, heavily barred and blacked out in the normal way by centuries of grime."
— 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 14, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
"Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale.[…]Rock-filled torrents smashed vehicles and homes, burying victims under rubble and sludge."
— 2013 June 29, “High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 28:
"Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? SpongeBob SquarePants!"
— 1998, “SpongeBob SquarePants Theme”, in Stephen Hillenburg, Derek Drymon (lyrics), SpongeBob SquarePants: Original Theme Highlights:
"There is general agreement that his military forces were organized into six divisions. They were stationed at the following places: at Ti-hua under the command of Liu Hsi-tsen, at T'a-ch'eng under Chiang Sung-lin, at Ili under Niu Shih, at A-shan under Wei Chen-kuo, at A-k'o-su under Chang Tzu-t'ing, and at Ko-shih-ko-erh (Kashgar) nominally under Tsou-ying, but in reality under Chin's brother, Chin Shu-chih."
— 1987, Arthur C. Hasiotis, Jr., Soviet Political, Economic, and Military Involvement in Sinkiang from 1928 to 1949, Garland Publishing, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 62:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The cat hid ____ the table, not on top or beside it.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I found my lost keys ____ the couch in the living room while I was searching for my mobile phone today.