[UNDER-2.]
Also written under-ground and under ground.
1. Below the surface of the ground.
1571. [see GROUND sb. 8].
1598. Florio, Sotteraneo, of or pertaining to things vnderground.
c. 1615. Sylvester, Job Triumphant, III. 273. Mines and veinlings (vnder ground) Whence Silver’s fetcht.
1684. T. Burnet, Theory Earth, I. 259. The … passage of the paradisiacal rivers under-ground or under-sea, from one continent into another.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. River, Some Rivers bury themselves under Ground in the middle of their Course.
1780. Coxe, Russ. Disc., 68. Their dwellings underground are similar to those of the Kamtchadals.
1850. Thackeray, Pendennis, xlvi. He … wished that lady … underground rather than there.
1878. Huxley, Physiography, 31. The laws which regulate the flow of water underground.
Comb. c. 1720. C. Place, in Mem. W. Stukeley (Surtees), I. 157. The old Giants are represented to us as underground-livers all of them.
1857. Henfrey, Bot., § 634. They are Truffles, or underground-fruiting Fungi.
b. Governed by from. (Cf. FROM prep. 15 a.)
1612. Two Noble K., Prol. 18. How will it shake the bones of that good man, And make him cry from under ground.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 820. Tisiphone, let loose from under Ground.
1872. Tennyson, Gareth & Lynette, 1386. Then sprang the happier day from underground.
2. fig. In secrecy or concealment; in a hidden or obscure manner.
1632. Star Chamb. Cases (Camden), 104. If he had medled with St. Austin and the Fathers, and not medled so much with these workes underground, he might have knowen the difference betweene the Church of Rome and us.
1679. Animadv. Sp. Five Jesuits, 16. To encourage those who are still carrying on the Design to proceed vigorously, since they may still work under-ground, and not be discovered.
1709. Shaftesb., Charac. (1711), II. 269. Supplanting and Undermining may, in other Cases, be fair War: But in Philosophical Disputes, ’tis not allowable to work underground.
1820. Hazlitt, Lect. Dram. Lit., 308. [Jeremy Taylor] does not dig his way underground, but slides upon ice.
1875. J. H. Newman, Lett., 29 Oct. The pains and achievements of an editor are emphatically underground and out of sight.
