Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The burden or accompaniment of a song; a refrain.
  • noun A subordinate strain; an underlying meaning.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The burden of a song; the chorus; the refrain.
  • noun Accompanying strain; subordinate and underlying meaning; accompaniment; undertone.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The burden of a song; the chorus; the refrain.
  • noun Accompanying strain; subordinate and underlying meaning; accompaniment; undertone.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

under- +‎ song

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Examples

  • Whether he truly registers, or can register, having been elsewhere, the subtle "undersong" of this country.

    Liblogs News Feed 2009

  • Again, one would have to be very literal-minded indeed not to hear the delicious irony that is Kate's undersong, centered on the great line "I am asham'd that women are so simple."

    "[O]ddly tender" M-mv 2007

  • Again, one would have to be very literal-minded indeed not to hear the delicious irony that is Kate's undersong, centered on the great line "I am asham'd that women are so simple."

    Archive 2007-01-01 M-mv 2007

  • For a more brutal sense of what is at stake in these overlapping materials, contexts, and drafts, where -- with Shelley so often providing the stated melody or haunting undersong -- Brecht undertakes to write alternately despairing and enraged elegy, see Brecht's seven stark, ultimately-discarded lines from the first sketch of "Die Verlustliste"

    Kaufman, Notes- _Reading Shelley's Interventionist Poetry, 1819-1820_ - Romantic Circles Praxis Series 2001

  • I waited patiently enough for what seemed a long time, trying to catch the undersong that thrilled through the forest, "the horns of elf-land faintly blowing," the hum such as bees at home make when late May sees the chestnut trees in flower.

    Morocco S.L. Bensusan

  • Good-byes rang out to the undersong of "We want more Beer."

    Captivity M. Leonora Eyles 1924

  • O yes, clean hands is the chant and only one man knows its sob and its undersong and he dies clenching the secret more to him than any woman or chum.

    Clean Hands. IV. Playthings of the Wind 1920

  • Like a throbbing undersong -- the fiendish accompaniment to the devils 'chorus -- the gossip of the station as detailed by Tessa ran with glib mockery through her brain.

    The Lamp in the Desert 1910

  • The devils 'tattoo on the roof had sunk to a mere undersong, a fitting accompaniment as it were to the electricity in the room.

    The Lamp in the Desert 1910

  • The afternoon was past its height, but bright yet, with the undersong of the wind and of Thunder Run.

    The Long Roll Mary Johnston 1903

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