Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Material or masonry used to support a structure, such as a wall.
- noun A support or foundation.
- noun Informal The human legs.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act of one who underpins; the act of supporting a superior part of a wall, etc., by introducing a support underneath it.
- noun A solid structure, as a new foundation or other support, temporary or permanent, introduced beneath a wall, a building, etc., previously constructed, as when the original foundation has proved insufficient, or has been impaired from any cause. Also called
undersetting , and in Scotland goufing. - noun The foundation-wall of a building, especially of a wooden one.
- noun A method of well-sinking in which a wall is laid in sections.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act of one who underpins; the act of supporting by stones, masonry, or the like.
- noun Local, U. S., Local, U. S. That by which a building is underpinned; the material and construction used for support, introduced beneath a wall already constructed.
- noun Local, U. S. The foundation, esp. of a frame house.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb Present participle of
underpin . - noun A
support orfoundation , especially as a structure ofmasonry that supports a wall or ametaphorical basis for something.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
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Examples
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PRESTON: I think the president was very interested in stabilizing and showing confidence and stability in these institutions, and then providing in place a longer-term underpinning through this regulator to make sure that that confidence goes well into the future.
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"These things suggest there is some medium-term underpinning for the rand," Worthington said, adding that sentiment could shift in the rand's favour, with progress in privatisation having a galvanizing effect.
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These tax agreements have been so successful in underpinning the revenues of some of the provinces and in simplifying the tax structure, that the Federal Government decided to renew its offer.
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So alarming were the comments on what had been said that I began to feel that I had inadvertently taken out the underpinning from the social system.
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David, if we go back a couple of years, one of the reasons you gave for going global, and this was sort of a long term underpinning, was the wide gap between retail square footage per capita in the U.S. and the rest of the world.
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"PNG LNG will provide Santos with long-term underpinning production and cash flows over the project production period," Santos said in a statement.
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That said, details of the out-of-court agreement reached by the pair have not been made public and neither firm has yet said what the terms underpinning the deal are.
The Register 2009
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If that doesn't strike you as a sound long-term underpinning for the United States or our economy, you are absolutely correct.
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Indeed, complexity is the keyword underpinning much of Nicholls's enterprise, and his book's most important lesson is that humankind's inability to understand the environment's intricacies should lead to both a respect for it and a precautionary approach to interacting with it.
unknown title 2009
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That psychological underpinning is crucial in any narrative, of course, but it’s if anything even more vital in stories where physical impossibilities are going to be commonplace.
Yatterings » London and Hell – Similar places? – Mike Carey interviewed 2007
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