[UNDER-1 5 c.] A sea-current below the surface of the water, moving in a contrary direction to that of the surface current.
1817. Sporting Mag., L. 221. A current,… at times counteracted by means of a strung opposing ‘undertow,’ as it is called.
1829. Marryat, F. Mildmay, xix. The recoil of the sea, and what is called by sailors the undertow, carried him back again.
1877. Huxley, Physiogr., xi. 172. The water bursts with great force upon the land, and then sweeps back, as a powerful ‘undertow’ to the sea.
transf. and fig. 1840. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), V. 232. There is always a strong ‘under-tow,’ as the Americans would call it, of honest and well-disposed men in such situations.
1879. Jefferies, Wild Life, 41. The weathercock will sometimes point in precisely the opposite direction, obeying the ‘undertow’ of the gale.
