sb. and a. [UNDER-1 5 b or c.]
1. A stream or current of water, air, etc., flowing beneath the upper current, or below the surface. Also fig. of Time.
1683. T. Smith, in Phil. Trans., XIV. 565. My conjecture is, that there is an under-current, whereby as great a quantity of water is carried out, as comes flowing in.
1687. Norris, Coll. Misc. (1699), 110. Time shall no more her under-current know, But one with great Eternity shall grow; Their streams shall mix.
1762. Phil. Trans., LII. 448. Recourse is had to the notion of an under-current.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 181. The descending water sinks down and forms an undercurrent.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., xx. 346. Part of this air then returns as an undercurrent.
b. In hydraulic gold-mining, a settling-box additional to the main sluice.
1877. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 95. The company has this season added a series of under-currents near the point where the washings empty into the river.
2. fig. An activity, force, tendency, etc., of a suppressed or underlying character.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., I. i. 23. Our genuine admiration of a great poet is a continuous under-current of feeling.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xvi. 115. That undercurrent of emotion which surrounds the question of one’s personal safety.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 371. That gift of humour, that genuine under-current of the soul.
3. attrib. or as adj. That runs or flows out of sight; concealed, hidden; suppressed.
1855. Tennyson, Maud, I. XVIII. viii. My heart more blest than heart can tell, Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe.
1896. Daily News, 9 April, 3/2. There was a good deal of under-current protest.
