Under

subs. (colloquial).—In pl. = the female privities. TO LIE UNDER (of women) = to SPREAD (q.v.).

  TO GO UNDER, verb. phr. (common).—1.  To die: whence the UNDER-SIDE = the grave.

  18[?].  Hawkeye, the Iowa Chief, 210. Poor Hawkeye felt, says one of his biographers, that his time had come, and knowing that he must GO UNDER sooner or later, he determined to sell his life dearly.

  1848.  RUXTON, Life in the Far West, 2. Them three’s all GONE UNDER.

  1888.  Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, March. All … vowed to see that the mine should be worked … for the benefit of the girl whether Jim lived or had GONE UNDER.

  1899.  HYNE, Further Adventures of Captain Kettle, vi. As sure as you are living now, you’ll finish out on the UNDER SIDE then.

  1901.  FERGUS HUME, The Crime of the Crystal, i. Mother Bunch’s GONE UNDER, I s’pose. She was making fast for Golden Jerusalem when I was a bud.

  2.  (common).—To become submerged in difficulty or debt, to be ruined, to disappear from society.

  1879.  PAYN, High Spirits, ‘Finding His Level.’ Poor John Weybridge, Esq., became as friendless as he was penniless, and eventually ‘WENT UNDER,’ and was heard of no more.

  1800.  Pall Mall Gazette, 29 May, 5. 1. He asks us further to state that the strike is completely at an end, the society having GONE UNDER.

  UNDER A CLOUD, adv. phr. (old).—In difficulties or disgrace.

  c. 1520.  Old Song of the Lady Bessy [Percy Society], xx. 79. [A man in disgrace] comes UNDER A CLOWDE.

  UNDER THE BELT, phr. (common).—In the stomach.

  1815.  SCOTT, Guy Mannering, xxxix. They got me down to Clerihugh’s, and there we sat birling till I had a fair tappit hen UNDER MY BELT.

  See BELOW.

  UNDER THE ROSE, phr. (colloquial).—Secretly; in confidence (DYCHE, GROSE).

  1546.  DYMOCKE, Letter to Vaughan [WALSH]. And the sayde questyon were asked with lysence, and that yt should remayn UNDER THE ROSSE, that is to say, to remain under the bourde and ne more to be rehersyd.

  1616–25.  The Court and Times of James the First [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 71. As to the prepositions we see UNDER THE ROSE].

  1625.  JONSON, The Staple of News, ii.

  1632.  CHAPMAN, The Ball, ii. 2. UNDER THE ROSE the lords do call me cousin.

  c. 1707.  Old Song, ‘The Praise of the Dairy-Maid’ [D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707), i. 12].

  1753.  The Adventurer, No. 98, 13 Oct. UNDER THE ROSE, I am a cursed favourite amongst them.

  1762.  SNELLING, Coins, 2. The rose … symbol of secrecy … [was] used with great propriety on privy seals, which came into use about the middle of the twelfth century.

  1821.  LAMB, The Essays of Elia, ‘Mrs. Battle’s Opinions on Whist.’ All people have their blind side—their superstitions; and I have heard her declare, UNDER THE ROSE, that Hearts was her favourite suit.

  1868.  OUIDA, Under Two Flags, iv. All great ladies gamble in stock nowadays UNDER THE ROSE.

  1892.  HUME NISBET, The Bushranger’s Sweetheart, 37. I no longer wondered that he should have quitted England UNDER THE ROSE.