Undermining

How to spell undermining

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce undermining

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does undermining mean?

1. verbGradually weakening or sabotaging someone's position, authority, or confidence.
2. verbWearing away or eroding the base or foundation of a physical structure.

Undermining in a sentence

• Constant criticism in meetings was undermining her authority with the team.

• The river was slowly undermining the bank beneath the old bridge.

• He accused his rival of quietly undermining the project behind his back.

• Engineers warned that the leak was undermining the building's foundations.

Where does undermining come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the present participle of the verb 'undermine', which is simply 'under' joined to 'mine'. The 'under' part is the native Old English preposition meaning 'beneath', while 'mine' here is the verb 'to dig', borrowed in the 1300s from the Old French 'miner', meaning 'to dig a tunnel or burrow'. The original sense was literal and military: attackers would tunnel beneath a castle wall or tower to make it collapse, so to undermine something was to dig away its foundations. From that vivid image the figurative sense grew, meaning to weaken or sabotage something gradually and from below rather than by open attack. The spelling is reassuringly transparent because both halves are common English words; the only thing to watch is keeping the single 'm' of 'mine' and not doubling it.

How the word is built

• under- (beneath)
• mine (to dig)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)