Underway Meaning
/ʌndəˈweɪ/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
advIn motion, in progress; being done or carried out; on a journey.
nounA road, track, path, or street for going under another way or obstacle; an underpass.
Sentence Examples
Let's get the party underway.
The project is underway.
A national campaign for energy saving is underway.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The new construction project is already ____ and will finish next month.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Plans for the new community center are already ____, and construction is expected to start next month today.
Word Origin & History
Calque of Dutch onderweg (“underway”), equivalent to under- + way. Compare also German unterwegs.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The next wave, well underway, is shipping back-office business tasks overseas, ..."
— 2008 February 14, Steve Lohr, “Offshore Outsourcing’s Next Wave: How High?”, in NY Times, retrieved 22 Jan 2012:
"The political world might still be recovering from the 2016 presidential election and focusing now on the midterm fights for Congress, but here in the nation's first primary state the battle for 2020 is already well underway."
— 2018 April 7, Andrew Dickinson, “In New Hampshire, the 2020 presidential race is already well underway”, in NBC News, retrieved 20 Sep 2018:
"As Minneapolis grew, the city demanded that M&StL construct "underways" beneath city roadways."
— 2005, Donovan L. Hofsommer, “Adrift”, in Minneapolis and the Age of Railways, Univ. of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, page 152:
"There are in fact many such subterranean underways in Germany, speeding traffic beneath bergs, burgs and villages and into and around and under big city downtowns ..."
— 2004, Alan Goldfein, “A Wonderful Drive”, in Europe's Macadam, America's Tar: How America Really Compares to "Old Europe", American Editions, →ISBN, page 46:
"I had been the diving officer on three previous submarines, …, and was an experienced officer of the deck with many underways and landings under my belt on all three."
— 2008, Alfred Scott McLaren, William R. Anderson, “To Severnaya Zemlya and the Beginning of the Shelf Survey”, in Unknown Waters: A First-Hand Account of the Historic Under-ice Survey of the Siberian Continental Shelf by USS Queenfish (SSN-651), Univ. of Alabama Press, →ISBN, page 179:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The new construction project is already ____ and will finish next month.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Plans for the new community center are already ____, and construction is expected to start next month today.