undergird
verb
Acts 27:17 (Revised Standard Version)Susan Q. Stranahan
Did you know?
When undergird was a new word in the 16th century, it was ships that were undergirded—that is, made secure below—and the undergirding was done by passing a rope or chain underneath. That literal sense has long since fallen out of use, but in the 19th century undergird picked up the figurative “strengthen” or “support” meaning that we still use. Centuries before anything was undergirded, however, people and things could be girded—that is, encircled or bound with a flexible band, such as a belt. Girding today is more often about preparing oneself to fight or to do something difficult, as in “girding themselves for an ideological battle.” About as old as gird is the word’s close relation, girdle, which originally referred to an article of clothing that circles the body usually at the waist; the girdles of today address the same anatomical territory but with the squeezy aim of making the waist look thinner. Gird also gives us girder, a noun referring to a horizontal piece supporting a structure.
Examples of undergird in a Sentence
Alec MacGillis, ProPublica, 18 Apr. 2025
This hectic oddness undergirds the conspiracy theories and wild extrapolations that course through the film and provides the rickety intellectual architecture for Dr. J.’s mercenary speculations.
—Richard Brody, New Yorker, 18 Apr. 2025
Yet even as humanity has (mostly) moved beyond the crude and cruel racial logics that underpinned the European imperial enterprise, Maine’s racial sorting of the world continues to undergird, and confound, our attempts to divide the planet into intuitive categories.
—Zachariah Mampilly, Foreign Affairs, 1 Apr. 2025
Federal jobs, typically known for their stability, help undergird a network of other positions and businesses that support them, from contractors to coffee shops.
—Jonathan Shorman and, Kansas City Star, 19 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for undergird
Cite this Entry
“Undergird.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/undergird. Accessed 29 Apr. 2025.
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undergird
verb
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