underweening

English

Etymology

From underween +‎ -ing.

Noun

underweening (uncountable)

1. Undervaluation.
   • 1637, A Short Treatise Contayning all the Principall Grounds of Christian Religion, page 211:

     Here is forbidden an over or underweening of the good things in our selves,

   • 1909, Sir Thomas Browne, Religio medici and other writings:

     But the greatest underweening of this life is to undervalue that, unto which this is but Exordial or a Passage leading unto it.

Adjective

underweening (comparative more underweening, superlative most underweening)

1. Extremely modest.
   • 1995, James Clerk Maxwell, Elizabeth Garber, Stephen G. Brush, Maxwell on heat and statistical mechanics:

     It is quite possible Challis may think you have an overweening estimate of foreigners and that a particular foreigner may think that your estimate of him is underweening as compared with his own.

   • 1971, New York: Volume 4:

     But when this same, very likable but nebbishy comedian pretends to be that supremely ambitious youth, Phaethon, the tragic ride in the chariot of the Sun-God is reduced from overweening to underweening.

   • 2008, Chet Raymo, When God is gone everything is holy:

     Is it possible to be underweening? Too unassuming in one's opinions?

   • 2010, Rena Steinzor, Sidney Shapiro, The People's Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public, →ISBN:

     In fact, if anything, it is an underweening bureaucracy.

   • 2011, Ellen B. Holzman, Edmund X. DeJesus, Lunch Reads Volume 3: Two Mystery Short Stories, →ISBN:

     This newspaper must not become a platform for the overweening to smother the opinions of the underweening.

   • 2013, John Campbell, Edward Heath: A Biography, →ISBN, page 502:

     'That underweening manner', Shrapnel commented, conveyed 'the reverse of modesty'.

Verb

underweening

1. present participle and gerund of underween

Related terms

• underween