UNDERVALUE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does undervalue mean? 

• UNDERVALUE (verb)
  The verb UNDERVALUE has 3 senses:

1. assign too low a value to

2. esteem lightly

3. lose in value

  Familiarity information: UNDERVALUE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNDERVALUE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they undervalue    ... he / she / it undervalues   
Past simple: undervalued   
Past participle: undervalued   
-ing form: undervaluing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Assign too low a value to

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

underestimate; undervalue

Context example:

Don't underestimate the value of this heirloom-you may sell it at a good price

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

value (fix or determine the value of; assign a value to)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Antonym:

overvalue (assign too high a value to)

Derivation:

undervaluation (too low a value or price assigned to something)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Esteem lightly

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

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

disesteem; disrespect (have little or no respect for; hold in contempt)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

undervaluation (too low a value or price assigned to something)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Lose in value

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

depreciate; devaluate; devalue; undervalue

Context example:

The dollar depreciated again

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

decrease; diminish; fall; lessen (decrease in size, extent, or range)

Verb group:

depreciate (lower the value of something)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

 Context examples 

Highly as the dog-driver had forevalued Buck, with his two devils, he found, while the day was yet young, that he had undervalued.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

God forbid that I should undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures!

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Your brother is certainly very much to be pitied at present; but we must not, in our concern for his sufferings, undervalue yours.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Perhaps she pitied and esteemed him the more because he was slighted by Willoughby and Marianne, who, prejudiced against him for being neither lively nor young, seemed resolved to undervalue his merits.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

To Jane, he could be only a man whose proposals she had refused, and whose merit she had undervalued; but to her own more extensive information, he was the person to whom the whole family were indebted for the first of benefits, and whom she regarded herself with an interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just as what Jane felt for Bingley.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

When his letter to Mrs. Weston arrived, Emma had the perusal of it; and she read it with a degree of pleasure and admiration which made her at first shake her head over her own sensations, and think she had undervalued their strength.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Everything was a friend, or bore her thoughts to a friend; and though there had been sometimes much of suffering to her; though her motives had often been misunderstood, her feelings disregarded, and her comprehension undervalued; though she had known the pains of tyranny, of ridicule, and neglect, yet almost every recurrence of either had led to something consolatory: her aunt Bertram had spoken for her, or Miss Lee had been encouraging, or, what was yet more frequent or more dear, Edmund had been her champion and her friend: he had supported her cause or explained her meaning, he had told her not to cry, or had given her some proof of affection which made her tears delightful; and the whole was now so blended together, so harmonised by distance, that every former affliction had its charm.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Elizabeth Bennet, said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

In that point, however, I undervalued my own magnanimity, as the event declared; for I went, I saw her, and saw her miserable, and left her miserable—and left her hoping never to see her again.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

And while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens—there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)