[UNDER-1 5 d. Cf. MSw. undirvidh.]
1. Small trees or shrubs, coppice-wood or brushwood, growing beneath higher timber trees.
a. 1325. MS. Rawl. B. 520, fol. 32 b. Þat te heiwes [= highways] … ben … ilargiste, Þer ase is wode, hegges oþer buskes ore vnderwode.
c. 1380. Antecrist, in Todd, Three Treat. Wyclif (1851), 119. His taile is likenyd to a cedre, [þat] wexyng in to heȝþe passiþ oþer vnderwod.
1467–8. Rolls of Parlt., V. 575/2. Every persone or persones, which have bought eny Tymbre, Woode or Underwode.
1480. Cov. Leet Bk., 415. The people … throwen down & beren away the vnderwode of þe seid Priour.
1512. Act 4 Hen. VIII., c. 18 § 17. Underwode growyng uppon the seid landes.
a. 1596. Sir T. More (Malone Soc.), Add. i. 65. Thinke when an oake fals, vnderwood shrinkes downe, And yet may liue, though brusd.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., II. xiii. 100. This underwood serves for supplies to save timber from burning.
1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 93. In a few years you may observe many fair Trees to steal up amongst the Underwood.
1733. W. Ellis, Chiltern & Vale Farm., 128. The Underwood will be fit to fell in … fifteen Years.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, xliv. At a deep recess of the forest,… so overgrown with underwood that they proceeded with difficulty.
1827. O. W. Roberts, Voy. Centr. Amer., 64. Our way … was nearly free from underwood or any material impediment.
1882. ‘Ouida,’ Maremma, I. 46. She made her way through the dense underwood.
attrib. 1796. W. H. Marshall, Planting, II. 51. Its branches … very much resemble those of the Beech:… especially in the shrubby underwood state.
b. fig.
a. 1637. B. Jonson, Underwoods, To Rdr. I am bold to entitle these lesser poems, of later growth, by this [name] of Underwood, out of the analogie they hold to the Forest in my former booke.
1693. Dryden, Juvenal, Ded. (1697), p. xxxiv. But these are the Under-Wood of Satire, rather than the Timber-Trees.
1863. Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., ix. 230. It is from among the underwood of these stately productions … that we bring to remembrance gems of praciical wisdom.
2. With a and pl. A quantity or stretch, a special kind, of woody undergrowth.
1541. Act 33 Hen. VIII., c. 39. All woodes and vnderwoodes, belonging to your office.
1581–2. Catal. Anc. Deeds (1906), V. 484. Breers, brembles, bushes and underwoodes.
1607. J. Norden, Surv. Dial., V. 140. Therefore must the Surueyor be heedful … to note what trees are among the underwoods.
1646. J. Hall, Horæ Vac., 101. Great Oakes breake their own branches and neighbouring underwoods.
1708. Lond. Gaz., No. 4475/3. Posting the … Granadiers among the Thickets of an Underwood.
1766. Goldsm., Vicar, iv. Our little habitation was … sheltered with a beautiful underwood behind.
1847. Emerson, Poems, Humble-bee, 29. Rover of the underwoods.
1867. Lady Herbert, Cradle L., i. 5. Enormous groves of date-palms…, with an underwood of poinsettias.
fig. a. 1637. B. Jonson, (title), Underwoods; consisting of divers poems. [Cf. 1 b.]
3. The wood underlying a veneer.
1862. Catal. Internat. Exhib., Brit. II. No. 3411. The veneering … will bear an immense amount of heat or damp before it will strip from the underwood.
Hence Underwooded a.
1861. Rossetti, in Ruskin, Life (1899), 277. A rich sweet country, beautifully wooded, underwooded, and sloped.
