English

Alternative forms

• underly

Verb

underlie ‎(third-person singular simple present underlies, present participle underlying, simple past underlay, past participle underlain)

1. (intransitive) To lie in a position directly beneath.

   A stratum of clay underlies the surface gravel.

2. (transitive) To lie under or beneath.
3. (transitive) To serve as a basis of; form the foundation of.

   a doctrine underlying a theory

   • 1941, Emily Carr, Klee Wyck, Chapter 6,

     […] she was carved into the bole of a red cedar tree. Sun and storm had bleached the wood, moss here and there softened the crudeness of the modelling; sincerity underlay every stroke.

   • 2013 July-August, Sarah Glaz, “Ode to Prime Numbers”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:

     Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.

4. (transitive) To be subject to; be liable to answer, as a charge or challenge.
   • Sir Walter Scott

     The knight of Ivanhoe […] underlies the challenge of Brian der Bois Guilbert.

5. (mining) To underlay.

Translations