Beneath means in a lower position than something. Beneath the surface, beneath the bridge, the ground beneath your feet.
It is the formal and literary member of the family: under is neutral, underneath is emphatic, below is neutral and often about level rather than covering, and beneath belongs to writing. It has a second sense about worth: beneath contempt, beneath him, beneath your dignity — meaning unworthy of somebody. That sense is alive in ordinary speech where the spatial one has largely retreated into books.
1prepositionbeneathIn a lower position than something.
“The whole tunnel runs beneath the river.”
synonyms: under, underneath, below
2prepositionworthyNot worthy of somebody.
“He thought the whole job was beneath him.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
beneath is a position below.
Old English bineothan is be, by, plus neothan, below — the same neothan inside underneath. English built three of these compound words and kept all of them, which is why the language has so many ways to say under.
Old English
bineoþan — beneath, under, below
Middle English
benethe
English, today
beneath
From Middle English benethe, from Old English bineoþan (“beneath, under, below”), equivalent to be + neath. Cognate with Low German benedden (“beneath”), Dutch beneden (“beneath, under, down”), obsolete German benieden (“below”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA