underworld
pronunciation
How to pronounce underworld in British English:
UK [ˈʌndəwɜ:ld]
How to pronounce underworld in American English:
US [ˈʌndərwɜrld]
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- Noun:
- the criminal class
- (religion) the world of the dead
Word Origin
- underworld (n.)
- c. 1600, "the lower world, Hades, place of departed souls," also "the earth, the world below the skies," as distinguished from heaven. Similar formation in German unterwelt, Dutch onderwereld, Danish underverden. Meaning "lower level of society" is first recorded 1890; "criminals and organized crime collectively" is attested from 1900.
Example
- 1. Many of the trials have featured lurid testimony about sex , corruption and the city 's violent underworld .
- 2. Mr obama has quoted a figure of $ 1 trillion lost last year to cybercrime-a bigger underworld than the drugs trade , though such figures are disputed .
- 3. The elements of the film -- the killer , the cops , the underworld , the women , the code -- are as familiar as the movies themselves .
- 4. Return and release to the underworld of his childhood coma are the old man 's intelligible goals , for which he prepares with prodigious sessions of sleep .
- 5. But much better that they be encouraged into the open , rather than cooped up in a conspiratorial underworld where their natural divisions are smothered and where the political tool of choice is violence .