UNDERMINE

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does undermine mean? 

• UNDERMINE (verb)
  The verb UNDERMINE has 2 senses:

1. destroy property or hinder normal operations

2. hollow out as if making a cave or opening

  Familiarity information: UNDERMINE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNDERMINE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they undermine    ... he / she / it undermines   
Past simple: undermined   
Past participle: undermined   
-ing form: undermining   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Destroy property or hinder normal operations

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

counteract; countermine; sabotage; subvert; undermine; weaken

Context example:

The Resistance sabotaged railroad operations during the war

Hypernyms (to "undermine" is one way to...):

disobey (refuse to go along with; refuse to follow; be disobedient)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "undermine"):

derail (cause to run off the tracks)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Hollow out as if making a cave or opening

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

cave; undermine

Context example:

The river was caving the banks

Hypernyms (to "undermine" is one way to...):

core out; hollow; hollow out (remove the interior of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "undermine"):

sap (excavate the earth beneath)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

Have you considered what it is to undermine the confidence that should subsist between my daughter and myself?

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

However, if both the population and price of walrus started to tumble, it must have badly undermined the resilience of the settlements, says co-author Dr Bastiaan Star of the University of Oslo.

(Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland, University of Cambridge)

Researchers also irradiated each batch of mosquitoes to sterilise any females left in the mix, because releasing Wolbachia-infected females has been shown to undermine the technique.

(Mosquitos rendered infertile by biological engineering, SciDev.Net)

The point of vulnerability lies in the fact that that solar heated surface water flows into the cavity near a stabilising pinning point, which could be undermined if basal melting intensifies further.

(Rapid melting of the world’s largest ice shelf linked to solar heat in the ocean, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

In the 1800s, the buffalo were hunted nearly to extinction not only for their valuable hides but also because many U.S. generals, including President Ulysses S. Grant, believed that removing the buffalo would undermine the economies of many of the Native American tribes that depended on them for food and goods and make it easier to push them onto reservations.

(Northern Arapaho Tribe welcomes buffalo herd in Wyoming, United States, Wikinews)

“There are three methods, by which a man may rise to be chief minister. The first is, by knowing how, with prudence, to dispose of a wife, a daughter, or a sister; the second, by betraying or undermining his predecessor; and the third is, by a furious zeal, in public assemblies, against the corruptions of the court. But a wise prince would rather choose to employ those who practise the last of these methods; because such zealots prove always the most obsequious and subservient to the will and passions of their master. That these ministers, having all employments at their disposal, preserve themselves in power, by bribing the majority of a senate or great council; and at last, by an expedient, called an act of indemnity” (whereof I described the nature to him), “they secure themselves from after-reckonings, and retire from the public laden with the spoils of the nation.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

As the receding wave swept back with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to undermine the earth.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea fights, ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side, dying groans, limbs flying in the air, smoke, noise, confusion, trampling to death under horses’ feet, flight, pursuit, victory; fields strewed with carcases, left for food to dogs and wolves and birds of prey; plundering, stripping, ravishing, burning, and destroying.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He was taken ill in the night—quite prostrate he was—in consequence of Crab; and after being drugged with black draughts and blue pills, to an extent which Demple (whose father was a doctor) said was enough to undermine a horse's constitution, received a caning and six chapters of Greek Testament for refusing to confess.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)