undergird
verb
Acts 27:17 (Revised Standard Version)Susan Q. Stranahan
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When undergird was a new word in the 16th century, it was ships that were undergirded—that is, made secure below—and the undergirding was done by passing a rope or chain underneath. That literal sense has long since fallen out of use, but in the 19th century undergird picked up the figurative “strengthen” or “support” meaning that we still use. Centuries before anything was undergirded, however, people and things could be girded—that is, encircled or bound with a flexible band, such as a belt. Girding today is more often about preparing oneself to fight or to do something difficult, as in “girding themselves for an ideological battle.” About as old as gird is the word’s close relation, girdle, which originally referred to an article of clothing that circles the body usually at the waist; the girdles of today address the same anatomical territory but with the squeezy aim of making the waist look thinner. Gird also gives us girder, a noun referring to a horizontal piece supporting a structure.
Synonyms
Examples of undergird in a Sentence
Ruth Marcus, Washington Post, 12 July 2024
Another promising application for CAHS, at least in the near future, is to preserve the myriad biologic medicines that undergird countless global health initiatives.
—Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 10 July 2024
His movie interrogates the labor systems that undergird filmmaking, and asks—mixing Shakespeare and Marx—whether actors as labor are made by their art or by their financiers.
—Michael Appler, Variety, 30 June 2024
But any superficial continuity in the United States’ Taiwan policy will be undergirded not by Trump’s sense that Taiwan is a beacon of democracy that needs support from the United States but by his willingness to use Taiwan as a potential bargaining chip with China.
—Victor Cha, Foreign Affairs, 26 June 2024
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“Undergird.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/undergird. Accessed 27 Jul. 2024.
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undergird
verb
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