Under

How to spell under

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce under

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does under mean?

1. prepositionIn or to a position directly below something, or affected by a particular condition or authority.
2. adverbIn or into a lower place or position; below the surface.

Under in a sentence

• preposition

  The cat was hiding under the kitchen table.

• adverb

  The swimmer took a deep breath and went under.

• preposition

  The whole project is under review by the finance team.

• adverb

  The boat began to sink and slowly went under.

Where does under come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a thoroughly native English word, descending directly from the Old English under, which meant 'beneath' or 'below' and also, in some uses, 'among' or 'between'. It belongs to a wide Germanic family, with close relatives in the Dutch onder and the German unter, all tracing back to a common Germanic ancestor. Scholars connect this further to an Indo-European root that carried the sense of 'lower' or 'below', the same deep root that gave Latin its inferus, meaning 'low', which in turn lies behind English words like 'inferior'. Because the word is so old and so frequently used, its spelling settled long ago and has stayed remarkably stable, the five letters mapping straightforwardly onto the sounds. The chief value of knowing its age is simply that 'under' behaves as a solid, dependable building block, attaching to countless other words as a prefix without ever changing its own form.

How the word is built

• under (Old English under: beneath, among); a single native root with no affixes