Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To do to an insufficient degree, especially to cook for too short a time.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To put under; subject.
- To do less thoroughly than is requisite; especially, to cook insufficiently: as, the beef is underdone.
- To act below one's abilities; do less than one can.
- To do less than is requisite.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To do less than is requisite or proper; -- opposed to
overdo . - transitive verb To do less thoroughly than is requisite; specifically, to cook insufficiently; ; -- opposed to
overdo .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive, obsolete To put under,
subject . - verb transitive To
do something insufficiently; especially toundercook . - verb intransitive To act below one's abilities; do less than one can.
- verb intransitive To do less than is requisite.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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And if you try to 'underdo' it, you often end up with an expression that isn't cleary recognizable to the viewer.
Sprezzatura James Gurney 2009
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"We were going to 'underdo' everybody else," he said.
Advertising Age - Homepage Kunur Patel 2010
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A "surgical" strike would do neither and would also violate the Powell doctrine that in military actions one should never underdo.
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I think McLame is trying really hard to look all Mavericky and because he's, well, old, he is over doing it because if you haven't noticed, the elderly don't tend to underdo much of anything.
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Our new path will be to underdo: smaller, clean energy houses and smarter buying habits.
Jessica Catto: House of Chutzpah, House of Cards, or Back to the Future Again 2009
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ROBERTS: Right, but you don't want to underdo it either.
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A young fellow should be ambitious to shine in everything — and, of the two, always rather overdo than underdo.
Letters to his son on The Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman 2005
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So, we don't want to overdo it, but I certainly don't want to underdo it either.
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They either overdo or underdo and fail to become balanced.
Maintaining Health Formerly Health and Efficiency R. L. Alsaker
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Each poultry keeper will have to accommodate the size of his flock to his own particular circumstances, being careful not to overdo or underdo too far.
From Captivity to Fame or The Life of George Washington Carver Raleigh Howard Merritt 1929
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