netherdom

English

Etymology

From nether- +‎ -dom.

Noun

netherdom (uncountable)

1. The condition, realm, or sphere of things below; a lower kingdom or domain; netherregion; the netherworld; Hell.
   • 1901, Louis Freeland Post, Alice Thatcher Post, Stoughton Cooley, The Public: A journal of democracy:

     It is a spectacle that ought to make the imps of netherdom tremble for their laurels — man.

   • 1906, Annie S. (Swan) Smith, The outsiders:

     A great gathering of the lost, the waste, " the drift of both banks," as my Officer-guide aptly puts it. It is, surely, a sight more for tears than wonder. Actual Netherdom.

   • 1922, Denton Jaques Snider, A biographic outline of Homer as he reveals himself in his works:

     But Olympian Homer keeps them submerged in his sunless Netherdom, from which however, he lets them peep forth once in a while with a dreadful eye-shot at his startled reader.

   • 1922, Denton Jaques Snider, A biography of William Shakespeare:

     Still this lower world of the folk finds its due counterpart in the upper world of royalty and nobility, who are making a Pandemonium of mutual carnage out of Britain, and like fiends broken loose from Satan's Netherdom are hugely charactered with blood-guilt and blood-revenge.

   • 2009, R. A. Jones, Cassandra: Wren of Black Crag:

     A flash of lightning was swiftly followed by uproarious celestial laughter as I took leave of my parents solemnly as if I was leaving them forever, longer; as if I was embarking on some journey into the pitiless expanses of netherdom.

Anagrams

• den mother, endotherm