as in abyss
a social sphere that exists outside of the mainstream
a magazine article taking an insightful look at the underworld inhabited by street people
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of underworld
At the bottom of the composition is the figure of Charon, a personage from Greek mythology who rowed souls over the river Styx to enter the pagan underworld.
—
Virginia Raguin, The Conversation, 19 Feb. 2026
Ultimately, Brobbey’s brief, if terrifying, brush with Amsterdam’s criminal underworld has not derailed his football career.
—Simon Hughes, New York Times, 17 Feb. 2026
Videos and photos have circulated within Sydney's criminal underworld of Baghsarian with severe injuries, local media reported.
—CBS News, 16 Feb. 2026
There was a dark underworld to London.
—Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 4 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for underworld
Virginia Raguin, The Conversation, 19 Feb. 2026
Ultimately, Brobbey’s brief, if terrifying, brush with Amsterdam’s criminal underworld has not derailed his football career.
—Simon Hughes, New York Times, 17 Feb. 2026
Videos and photos have circulated within Sydney's criminal underworld of Baghsarian with severe injuries, local media reported.
—CBS News, 16 Feb. 2026
There was a dark underworld to London.
—Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 4 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for underworld
Recent Examples of Synonyms for underworld
Noun
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His investigation is a testament to the power of perseverance, albeit a perseverance that threatens to turn into an obsession that could drag him into the abyss à la Captain Ahab.—
Paul Fitzgerald,
Rolling Stone,
3 Mar. 2026
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The horror has come now like a storm— what if this night prefigured the night after death— what if all thereafter was an eternal quivering on the edge of an abyss, with everything base and vicious in oneself urging one forward and the baseness and viciousness of the world just ahead.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
3 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Now, in an age of instant communications, their Cold War counterparts could nonetheless disappear into a covert netherworld, loosening Washington’s controls and freeing them to plot coups, mobilize armies, and install governments.—
Alfred McCoy,
Literary Hub,
26 Feb. 2026
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Girand’s journey into this netherworld was sparked by neighborhood chaos and an attempt to understand what was happening.—
Teri Sforza,
Oc Register,
12 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Eco effort Water from the lake is pumped from depths of 164 feet and filtered into the hotel’s air conditioning system to cool the rooms in summer.—
Condé Nast,
Condé Nast Traveler,
5 Mar. 2026
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Progress is limited by the lack of publicly available benchmark datasets with data captured from multiple types of sensors using realistic mine deployments and precise ground truth, meaning the actual positions and depths of the target mines.—
Sagar Lekhak,
The Conversation,
5 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Often considered the most scathing film ever made about the movie industry, The Day of the Locust is an adaptation of Nathanael West’s celebrated novel about a down-and-out artist turned set painter and the Los Angeles demimonde during the Great Depression.—
Erik Morse,
Vogue,
23 Oct. 2025
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One thing was certain: Per its title, it was set in the demimonde of the galaxy far, far away, among its scoundrels, and smugglers, and bounty hunters and assorted other criminals.—
Christian Blauvelt,
IndieWire,
12 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Underworld.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/underworld. Accessed 9 Mar. 2026.
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