underprize

English

Etymology

Pronunciation

Audio (US): (file)

Verb

underprize (third-person singular simple present underprizes, present participle underprizing, simple past and past participle underprized)

(transitive) To undervalue; to underestimate.
- c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
  […] Yet look, how far / The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow / In underprizing it, so far this shadow / Doth limp behind the substance.
- 1625, “English Plantations, Discoveries, Acts, and Occurrents, in Virginia and Summer Ilands since the Yeere 1606 till 1624”, in Samuel Purchas, editor, Purchas His Pilgrimes, Part 4 in Five Bookes‎^[1], London: Henry Fetherstone, Chapter 6, Section 4, p. 1756:
  […] euery man ouer-ualuing his owne worth, would be a Commander: euery man vnder prizing anothers value, denied to be commanded.
- 1631, Fra[ncis] Quarles, “Sect[ion] 23. Meditat[ion] 23.”, in The Historie of Samson, London: […] M[iles] F[lesher] for Iohn Marriott, […], →OCLC, page 142:
  Teach me to underprize this life, and I / Shall finde my loſſe the eaſier, vvhen I dye; […]
- 1923, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter 14, in The Lone Wolf Returns‎^[2], New York: Grosset & Dunlap:
  No: it would never do to underprize this proof of good will or to read in Liane’s warning any spirit but one of the most earnest anxiety.
- 1996, Seamus Heaney, “An Invocation”, in The Spirit Level, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 32:
  I underprized your far-out, blathering genius.