underset
undercurrent (of water)
Noun
- undercurrent (of water)
Origin
From Middle English undersetten, from Old English undersettan (“to put, place, or set under, put in the place of another, substitute, falsify, forge, counterfeit, place as a pledge, hypothecate, add, annex, subjoin, make subject, submit, set beneath, esteem less”), equivalent to under- + set. Cognate with Dutch ondersetten (“to put beneath”), German untersetzen (“to put beneath, pin”).
Forms
Verb
- To set under or beneath.
- How it was shaped up with proper foreway and under-set for dished wheels, or how iron "clouts" (with "clout-nails") were carefully fitted into it to take the wear — is all but gone from my memory, as indeed it was...
- To prop or support.
- being a company at that time , and well underset with rich men , and good order - 1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, […], London:...
- Unless posts are underset in very steep mines they are apt to fall out before the pressure of the roof has tightened them. Posts are sometimes too much underset, owing to their being too long. - 1887, Arthur Robert...