[UNDER-1 4 a, b. Cf. OE. underirnan.]
1. trans. To run, flow, or pass beneath.
1594. Kyd, Cornelia, V. ii. 47. Those braue Germains … Beheld the swift Rheyn vnder-run mine Ensignes.
1681. T. Flatman, Heraclitus Ridens, No. 13 (1713), I. 86. These fruitful Meadows came to be stock’d and under-run with those subterranean Inhabitants, vulgarly called Moles.
1799. W. Tooke, View Russian Emp., I. 157. The granite is under-run by schistose earth.
1855. Maury, Phys. Geog. Sea, i. § 14. One part of it underruns the Gulf Stream.
1880. Blackmore, Mary Anerley, III. vii. 94. A scowl of dark vapour came over the headlands, and under-ran the solid snow-clouds.
fig. 1882. W. B. Weeden, Soc. Law Labor, 63. The principle … underran all these modifications.
2. Naut. a. To overhaul or examine (a cable, etc.) on the under side, spec. by drawing a boat along under it.
1547. Admiralty Crt. Oyer & Terminer 73, No. 21. They toke ye kabyll in the botts hed and under rynned ye kabyll tyll yt was a pyke.
1633. T. James, Voy., 79. We vnder-run our small Cable.
1667. Ld. Brouncker, Lett. to Pepys, 3 July. Not only in my own opinion is the chain broke,… yet we could nether spare hands nor lighter to underrunn it.
1745. P. Thomas, Jrnl. Anson’s Voy., 156. They … underran the Cables by which … [the ship] rode.
1798. Hull Advertiser, 25 Aug., 3/2. The harbour … is … very rocky, the bottom so much so as to make it necessary to under-run every cable.
1834. Marryat, P. Simple, viii. Oblige me by under-running the guess warp.
1857. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., 706.
b. (See quot.)
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1780), To under-run a tackle, is to separate the several parts of which it is composed, and range them in order, from one block to the other.
c. To pull in (a net or trawl) in order to clear it of the catch and reset it.
1883. Joncas, Fisheries Canada, 30. As soon as the seals are caught in the meshes, the men under-run the nets.
1897. Kipling, Capt. Cour., 101. Underrunning a trawl means pulling it in on one side or the dory, picking off the fish, rebaiting the hooks, and passing them back to the sea again.
3. In pa. pple. (See quot. 1855.)
1855. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XVI. I. 9. Cut away all hoof that is separated from the sensitive parts, or, as a shepherd would say, as much as is ‘under-run.’
1908. Animal Managem., 337. Any horn [of an ox-hoof] which is underrun should be removed.
