Underground Railroad

noun

variants or less commonly Underground Railway

: a system of cooperation among active antislavery people in the U.S. before 1863 by which people escaping enslavement were secretly helped to reach the North or Canada

Examples of Underground Railroad in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Tied Up In The Past My first landmark stop was Freedom Park (Broderick Park), once a vital Underground Railroad crossing point. —Rafael Peña, Miami Herald, 6 June 2025

Honors Harriet Tubman, an Underground Railroad conductor and Union spy during the Civil War. —Sophie Clark, MSNBC Newsweek, 4 June 2025

Canadians are the people who really fought and helped escaped slaves, remember the Underground Railroad went to Canada. —J.m. Banks, Kansas City Star, 3 June 2025

The changes to the Underground Railroad page were originally detailed in a Washington Post expose on Sunday and immediately drew widespread criticism. —David Matthews, New York Daily News, 9 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1842, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for Underground Railroad

• abode
• anode
• barcode
• bestowed
• boatload
• borrowed
• carload
• caseload
• cathode
• commode
• corrode
• crossroad

Kids Definition

Underground Railroad

noun

: a system of cooperation among active antislavery people in the U.S. before 1863 by which people escaping enslavement were secretly helped to reach the North or Canada