undergird
verb
Acts 27:17 (Revised Standard Version)Susan Q. Stranahan
Did you know?
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.
Examples of undergird in a Sentence
Alec MacGillis, ProPublica, 18 Apr. 2025
Mortgage rates move more closely in step with longer term interest rates in the bond market but are undergirded by interbank lending rates in the short term.
—Sylvan Lane, The Hill, 17 Apr. 2025
But undergirding all the conjectures is the perception of diminishing confidence in U.S. policies.
—Lee Ying Shan, CNBC, 15 Apr. 2025
This transformation undergirded Alfred Sauvy’s famous tripartite division of humanity into First, Second, and Third Worlds.
—Zachariah Mampilly, Foreign Affairs, 1 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for undergird
Cite this Entry
“Undergird.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/undergird. Accessed 20 May. 2025.
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undergird
verb
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