SUBTERRANEAN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does subterranean mean? 

• SUBTERRANEAN (adjective)
  The adjective SUBTERRANEAN has 2 senses:

1. being or operating under the surface of the earth

2. lying beyond what is openly revealed or avowed (especially being kept in the background or deliberately concealed)

  Familiarity information: SUBTERRANEAN used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SUBTERRANEAN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Being or operating under the surface of the earth

Synonyms:

subterranean; subterraneous

Context example:

a subsurface flow of water

Similar:

subsurface (beneath the surface)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Lying beyond what is openly revealed or avowed (especially being kept in the background or deliberately concealed)

Synonyms:

subterranean; subterraneous; ulterior

Context example:

looked too closely for an ulterior purpose in all knowledge

Similar:

covert (secret or hidden; not openly practiced or engaged in or shown or avowed)

 Context examples 

Pity and compassion had been generated in the subterranean barracoons of the slaves and were no more than the agony and sweat of the crowded miserables and weaklings.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The subterranean ocean is thought to have more water than all the water on Earth's surface.

(Hubble Observations Suggest Underground Ocean on Jupiter's Largest Moon, NASA)

She did not hear him cross the courtyard beyond, nor see him pause in the archway that led from the subterranean path into the garden.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Mars's rocky, subterranean layer once, for some hundreds of millions of years, had enough water and reductants to support some of the same kinds of microbial communities seen on Earth.

(Study suggests Mars hosted life-sustaining habitat for millions of years, Wikinews)

Treatments to remove arsenic contamination, mostly associated with water drawn from deep, subterranean sources using borewells, include the use of lime, various coagulants, osmotic membrane filters or ion exchange processes.

(Watermelon rind a cheap filter for arsenic in groundwater, SciDev.Net)

Some termite species cultivate fungi in "gardens" in subterranean nests or chambers, helping to convert plant material into a more easily digestible termite food source.

(Researchers discover oldest evidence of 'farming' by insects, NSF)

But huge subterranean water reserves lie under the Kalahari, which covers parts of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.

(Sleeping sands of the Kalahari awaken after more than 10,000 years, NSF)

If the icy surface of Pluto's giant moon Charon is cracked, analysis of the fractures could reveal if its interior was warm, perhaps warm enough to have maintained a subterranean ocean of liquid water, according to a new study.

(Cracks in Pluto's moon could indicate it once had an underground ocean, NASA)

By drilling 2.5 kilometers into the seafloor and plucking microbes from boreholes 5 deep across hundreds of sites around the world, an international team of researchers has pieced together a model of the subterranean ecosystem hidden beneath the Earth.

(Researchers Create New Model of Ecosystem Hidden Beneath Earth, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

But, however that may be, I should expect to find the surface of the plateau slope inwards with a considerable sheet of water in the center, which may drain off, by some subterranean channel, into the marshes of the Jaracaca Swamp.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)