underground

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adverb

un·der·ground ˌən-dər-ˈgrau̇nd

Synonyms of underground next

: beneath the surface of the earth

: in or into hiding or secret operation

underground

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noun

ˈən-dər-ˌgrau̇nd

: a subterranean space or channel

: an underground city railway system

: a movement or group organized in strict secrecy among citizens especially in an occupied country for maintaining communications, popular solidarity, and concerted resistive action pending liberation

: a clandestine conspiratorial organization set up for revolutionary or other disruptive purposes especially against a civil order

: an unofficial, unsanctioned, or illegal but informal movement or group

especially : a usually avant-garde group or movement that functions outside the establishment

underground

3 of 3

adjective

un·der·ground ˈən-dər-ˌgrau̇nd

: being, growing, operating, or situated below the surface of the ground

: conducted by secret means

: existing outside the establishment

an underground literary reputation

: existing outside the purview of tax collectors or statisticians

the underground economy

: produced or published outside the establishment especially by the avant-garde

underground movies

underground newspapers

: of or relating to the avant-garde underground

an underground moviemaker

an underground theater

Example Sentences

Adverb They had been living underground as fugitives. Noun I've ridden on the New York subway, the Paris Metro, and the London Underground. joined the underground while still a teenager Adjective The drugs are supplied through an underground network. She loves the city's underground music scene.

Recent Examples on the Web

Adverb

Thirty of Luch’s 50 residents live underground in two nuclear bunkers and a separate basement. —

Naomi Schanen, Washington Post, 2 Mar. 2023 Angelina Potopenko has been living underground since the start of the war. —

Ian Pannell, ABC News, 24 Feb. 2023 For the next decade, Rushdie lived underground, guarded by officers of the Special Branch, a unit of London’s Metropolitan Police. —

David Remnick, The New Yorker, 6 Feb. 2023 Though there is historical precedent, with ancient subterranean cities in places such as Spain and Turkey, getting humans to actually live underground today remains a tougher sell. —

Samantha Bresnahan, CNN, 21 Dec. 2022 The kallikantzaroi are a group of blind, black goblins who live underground during most of the year sawing at the world tree – a motif throughout various folklores that connects the heavens to the Earth. —

Jennifer Borresen, USA Today, 20 Dec. 2022 Further analysis of its morphological and phylogenetic features revealed that the insect likely lived underground and was a close ancestor of a type of modern army ant from Africa and Asia, known as the Dorylus. —

Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 29 Nov. 2022 Although the exact definition has changed quite a bit over the years, gnomes are said to be nature spirits who live underground, often interacting with humans in either helpful or mischievous ways. —

Samantha Jones, Better Homes & Gardens, 14 Nov. 2022 Chicagoans and New Yorkers alike may take minor comfort in the fact that Norway rats, which like to burrow and live underground, are the predominant species in both cities. —

Michael Kolomatsky, New York Times, 10 Nov. 2022

Noun

Fellow radio DJs in the electronic underground, the pair were joined by their desire to make their mark on the relatively conformist music scene. —

Monica Kim, Vogue, 17 Feb. 2023 Dozier said all the parking for the new office and apartments would be in new underground and above the street garages. —

Dallas News, 18 Nov. 2022 A lot of this vitriol came from the memelords of 4chan, Tumblr’s darker cousin in the online underground and, for a while, its direct rival. —

Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 1 Feb. 2022 Sustaining thousands of zama-zamas underground is a complex and lucrative exercise in logistics. —

Kimon De Greef, The New Yorker, 20 Feb. 2023 Malware the police secretly planted into the encrypted system siphoned off more than 100 million messages, laying bare the inner workings of the criminal underground. —

Matt Burgess, WIRED, 4 Jan. 2023 One’s father became a prosecutor with the goal of cleaning up crime on the Coast, while the other’s father became the leader of Biloxi’s criminal underground. —

Jenni Camhi The Sun Herald (tns), al, 2 Jan. 2023 Cruel World taps into the many veins of goth-rock, new wave and post-punk that ruled airwaves and the underground in the ‘70s and ‘80s. —

Los Angeles Times, 23 Jan. 2023 Like bootlegs of movies from Europe and the New York underground, or reams of ’60s drive-in pulp. —

Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 19 Jan. 2023

Adjective

The United Nations atomic agency confirmed Tuesday that its inspectors had found traces of near weapons-grade nuclear material at Iran’s underground Fordow facility, but said Iran was still enriching to the less dangerous level of 60% at the site. —

Laurence Norman, WSJ, 28 Feb. 2023 Many Ukrainian museums hastily evacuated their collections to other locations, sometimes to basements, underground storage facilities or safe sites removed from major Russian attack zones. —

Dr. Richard Kurin, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Feb. 2023 The Yulin Naval Base made headlines in 2020 when commercial satellites captured a PLA Navy sub entering a tunnel leading to underground docking facilities on the island. —

Nectar Gan, CNN, 15 Feb. 2023 The samples were extracted from 31 of 121 ceramic vessels found at an underground embalming facility in the necropolis of Saqqara outside Cairo. —

Peter Weber, The Week, 2 Feb. 2023 Israel is suspected of launching a series of attacks on Iran, including an April 2021 assault on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges. —

Jon Gambrell, ajc, 29 Jan. 2023 Israel is suspected of launching a series of attacks on Iran, including an April 2021 assault on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges. —

Jon Gambrell, BostonGlobe.com, 29 Jan. 2023 Since its launch earlier this year, the crew’s lineups have featured the best D.C. has to offer (Beautiful Swimmers, Rush Plus) and leading names in underground dance music (Ron Morelli, Physical Therapy, Eris Drew and Octo Octa). —

Chris Richards, Washington Post, 8 Dec. 2022 Though metal is often dismissed as underground music—frantic, savage, niche—Metallica has sold some hundred and twenty-five million records to date, putting the band on par, commercially, with Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z. —

Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 28 Nov. 2022 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'underground.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.