Dictionary

underweening en · ADJ

Etymology

From underween + -ing.

Meanings

1. Extremely modest.
   • 'That underweening manner', Shrapnel commented, conveyed 'the reverse of modesty'. 2013, John Campbell, Edward Heath: A Biography, →ISBN, page 502:
   • But when this same, very likable but nebbishy comedian pretends to be that supremely ambitious youth, Phaethon, the tragic ride in the chariot of the Sun-God is reduced from overweening to underweening. 1971, New York: Volume 4
   • This newspaper must not become a platform for the overweening to smother the opinions of the underweening. 2011, Ellen B. Holzman, Edmund X. DeJesus, Lunch Reads Volume 3: Two Mystery Short Stories, →ISBN:
   • Is it possible to be underweening? Too unassuming in one's opinions? 2008, Chet Raymo, When God is gone everything is holy:
   • It is quite possible Challis may think you have an overweening estimate of foreigners and that a particular foreigner may think that your estimate of him is underweening as compared with his own. 1995, James Clerk Maxwell, Elizabeth Garber, Stephen G. Brush, Maxwell on heat and statistical mechanics:
   • In fact, if anything, it is an underweening bureaucracy. 2010, Rena Steinzor, Sidney Shapiro, The People's Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public, →ISBN:

Forms

underweening en · NOUN

Etymology

From underween + -ing.

Meanings

1. (uncountable) Undervaluation.
   • But the greatest underweening of this life is to undervalue that, unto which this is but Exordial or a Passage leading unto it. 1909, Sir Thomas Browne, Religio medici and other writings:
   • Here is forbidden an over or underweening of the good things in our selves, 1637, A Short Treatise Contayning all the Principall Grounds of Christian Religion, page 211:

underweening en · VERB

Etymology

From underween + -ing.

Meanings

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present) present participle and gerund of underween
   form of underween

Relateds

underween