[f. prec.]
Also occas. written under-ground.
A. adj. = SUBTERRANEAN a.
1. a. Found below the surface of the ground.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., 745. Vnder-grownd trees, or which haue lien a long time buried there.
1673. Ray, Journ. Low C., 6. In Friesland … there are great numbers of these under-ground Trees found.
b. Growing, living, or developed underground.
1757. Phil. Trans., L. 404. A compressed pod of the … Underground-Pea.
1807. Southey, Lett. (1856), I. 417. Some Jerusalem or under-ground artichokes.
1842. Loudon, Suburban Hort., 113. The most injurious of all underground larvæ. Ibid., 279. Tubers, or underground stems.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 673. The buds on underground rhizomes.
c. Dwelling underground or in the underworld.
1833. Keightley, Fairy Mythol., I. 314. A treasure which the underground-people must redeem at any price.
1866–7. Baring-Gould, Myths Mid. Ages (1872), 216. The underground folk seek union with human beings.
2. Situated below the surface of the ground.
1611. Cotgr., Hypogee, a vault, celler, or such like vnder-ground roome.
1664. Ingelo, Bentiv. & Ur., II. VI. 172. An under-ground Temple consecrated to Melancholy.
1665–6. Phil. Trans., I. 109. The Divine Structure of the under-ground World.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., VII. 353. The Mole-Cricket … at night … ventures from its under-ground habitation.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 353. If a projected building is to have cellars, or under-ground kitchens.
1846. Mrs. A. Marsh, Father Darcy, II. i. 8. One of those long underground passages, used for communication between the different houses.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 31. After slowly trickling through a long dark underground course.
b. In fig. context. (Cf. 4.)
1675. Owen, Indwelling Sin, vi. (1732), 51. It will increase … until it … makes it self an underground-passage, by some secret Lust that shall give a full Vent unto it.
1822. De Quincey, Confess., 48. The stream of London charity flows in a channel … noiseless and underground.
c. Underground railroad, railway, (a) a railway running under the surface of the ground, esp. beneath the streets and buildings of a city; (b) U.S. The secret system by which slaves were enabled to escape to the Free States and Canada. (Also underground line.)
(a) 1834–5. P. Barlow, in Encycl. Metrop. (1845), VIII. 240/1. The under-ground Railways … in Newcastle, and its immediate vicinity.
1885. C. E. Pascoe, London of To-day, xiii. 137. The stuffy underground railway journey to Baker Street.
(b) 1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., viii. 43. Till the gal’s been carried on the underground line up to Sandusky or so. Ibid. (1856), Dred, II. xxx. 318. An indefinite yet very energetic institution, known as the underground railroad.
1875. N. Amer. Rev., CXX. 67. More fugitives than ever came from the slave states, and the underground railroad was in fuller activity than before.
3. Carried on, taking place, underground.
1709. T. Robinson, Nat. Hist. Westmoreld., Pref. A vj. The Inspection of Under-ground Projects of several kinds.
1795. Earl Dundonald, Connex. Agric. w. Chem., 171. The clay … may be wrought by shafting and under-ground mining.
1831. T. Hope, Ess. Origin Man, II. 73. The earth-worm,… to whom a body dense and rigid … would only impede his underground progress.
1872. Yeats, Techn. Hist. Comm., 218. The abandonment of ridges will render underground drainage even more necessary.
b. Worn while underground.
1827. Q. Rev., XXXVI. 89. As soon as the men come to grass they repair to the engine-house, where they generally leave their underground clothes to dry.
1888. F. Hume, Mme. Midas, I. v. They arrayed themselves in underground garments.
c. Working, having control, underground.
1852. Eng. & Foreign Mining Gloss. (1860), 60. Overman, an underground overlooker.
1871. Daily News, 21 Sept. The underlookers, and the underground manager [of the colliery].
1879. Miss Jackson, Shropshire Word-bk., 348. Reeve, the underground overlooker of the pits.
d. Adapted for use underground.
1884. Knight, Dict. Mech., Suppl. 911/1. Stevens’s underground engine.
4. fig. Hidden, concealed, secret.
1677. Gilpin, Demonol. (1867), 250. This is their help, that some secret underground hopes which they espy not, do revive, at least sometimes.
1848. Keble, Serm., Pref. p. xlv. There may be an unseen, underground unity.
1836. Gurney, etc., Phantasms of Living, I. 538. We have already had numerous … instances of what may be called ‘underground telepathy.’
b. Not open or public; concealed from or avoiding general notice.
1820. J. W. Croker, Diary, 12 April, in C. Papers. Brougham … I believe has been for some time in underground communication with Carlton House.
1883. trans. Kravchinsky’s Underground Russia, 49. The inner life of Underground Russia.
B. sb. 1. The region below the earth; the lower regions or underworld.
1590. T. Watson, Poems (Arb.), 159. That … they may lament with guosts of vnder-ground.
1592. Kyd, Sp. Trag., I. vi. 1. Come we for this from depth of vnder ground?
a. 1618. Sylvester, Job Triumph., III. 278. Beyond the bounds of Darkness Man hath pry’d And th’ excellence of underground de-cry’d.
1887. Scribner’s Mag., II. 449. The open spaces of the underground may … be divided into several distinct classes.
b. An underground space or passage.
1594. Kyd, Cornelia, II. i. 377. Those seas … Returne to springs by vnder-grounds.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, XV. 176. This Jupiter, and I, And Pluto, God of under-grounds.
1884. Daily News, 24 Sept., 3/2. The financial success … had not been such as to encourage costly exploration in unknown undergrounds.
2. a. Underlying ground or soil; subsoil.
So Du. ondergrond, G. untergrund.
1812. Sir J. Sinclair, Syst. Husb. Scot., I. 231. A dry, free soil, on a sound under-ground or bottom.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., III. 10. The underground of houses in certain localities being infiltrated with the virus [of rheumatic fever].
b. Ground lying at a lower level or below trees.
1842. Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, II. 7. Rushes and … marsh thistles filled up the under ground.
1878. Mrs. Oliphant, Primrose P., II. 124. The mossy underground beneath the firs.
3. An underground railway.
1887. Doyle, Study in Scarlet (1892), 28. A third class carriage on the Underground.
Hence Undergrounder, -groundling.
Also underground v., to place or lay under ground (1891 Cent. Dict.).
1858. Once a Week, 18 Jan., 66/1. The Metropolitan railway (the undergroundlings).
1882. Belgravia, July, 67. That the aëronauts had the advantage of the undergrounders.
