underlying

lying underneath

Adjective

  1. lying underneath
    • We dug down to the underlying rock.
    • Old Yew, which graspest at the stones ⁠That name the under-lying dead, ⁠Thy fibres net the dreamless head, Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. - 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto II”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward...
    • During the track renewals, advantage was taken to redrain the area and the old spent ballast was removed down to the underlying rock, new ballast and drains being provided throughout. - 1950 January, “Re-Signalling at...
  2. basic or fundamental
    • Points and straight lines are underlying elements of geometry.
    • Finding a successful treatment for Alzheimer’s faces two major hurdles: the first being we still don’t know enough about the disease’s underlying biology. - 2018 January 18, Jürgen Götz, “Why it’s so hard to treat...
    • The underlying problem with transport policy is that there no coherent strategy. Ministers have tended to encourage greater use of motor vehicles through both transport and (particularly) planning policies, while...
  3. implicit
    • Many nursery rhymes have an underlying meaning.

Origin

By surface analysis, underlie + -ing.

Derived

underlying form underlying functor underlying set

Noun

  1. The entity from whose performance a derivative derives its value.

Forms

underlyings

Related

underpinning

Verb

  1. present participle and gerund of underlie