[f. UNDERMINE v. So Du. ondermijner.]
1. One who undermines; a sapper.
1519. Horman, Vulg., 257 b. Vndermynars ouerthrewe the walle.
1556. Withals, Dict. (1562), 79/1. An vnderminer, cunicularius.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 400. A frame or engin … under which the pioners and underminers had their ingresse and egresse.
1658. Osborne, Jas. I., 34. These underminers … intended in their calculation the destruction of the house of Lords.
1802. James, Milit. Dict., Underminer, a sapper.
fig. 1601. Shaks., All’s Well, I. i. 131. Blesse our poore Virginity from vnderminers and blowers vp.
1654. ‘Palaemon,’ Friendship, 28. He that is an underminer of the Foundation must of necessity ruine the Superstructure.
2. A secret or insidious assailant, subverter, destroyer, etc.
1564. Palfreyman, Baldwin’s Mor. Philos. (1600), 129 b. The whole broode of … secret vnderminers, hipocrits, and double dealers.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. xxvi. 4. Neyther will I come in company with undermyners.
1608. D. T[uvill], Ess. Pol. & Mor., 60 b. There are another kinde of cunning vndermyners.
1656. Baxter, Reformed Pastor, III. ii. § 4. Nor suffer underminers or persecutors to scatter them.
1693. South, Serm., 96. No one is bound to look upon … his underminer … as his friend.
a. 1734. North, Lives (1826), I. 386. At court there are always a sort of underminers who [etc.].
1838. Lytton, Calderon, i. To … his foes, his underminers—he assumed a yet greater frankness.
b. Const. of (the thing or person assailed).
1598. Dallington, Meth. Trav., B ij. The Iesuites, vnderminders and inveiglers of greene wits.
1650. Hubbert, Pill Formality, 70. In all ages there have been underminers of the power of godliness in a secret way.
a. 1674. Clarendon, Surv. Leviath. (1676), 113. The neglect of Justice is an infallible underminer … of that security.
a. 1715. Burnet, Own Time (1766), I. 403. A secret enemy to their interest and an underminer of it.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), 412. A concealed infidel, a secret underminer of things sacred.
1803. Mme. D’Arblay, Lett., 14 March. Depression, that cruel underminer of every faculty that makes life worth sustaining.
1879. Jos. Cook, Marriage, 8. Do you stand here, underminers of the family life, and gaze into the eyes of these women!
