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underpinning

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,598 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: underpinnings

An underpinning is the support on which something else rests. The underpinning of the argument.

In building it means putting new foundations under a wall that is already standing. An underpinning of an argument is the assumption everything else depends on.

Alisdair Mclean · CC BY-SA 2.0

Definitions of underpinning

  1. 1noununderpinningThe support on which something else rests.C1

    “The whole underpinning of the theory turned out to be one study.”

underpinning is a support.

Where it comes from

underpin comes from under- + pin.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

underpinning in the wild

  • Through semantic change the word underpinning has evolved to encompass all abstract concepts that serve as a foundation.

    Underpinning

  • In the late 1960s UQAM was born and established itself in the Ville-Marie borough, giving a modern underpinning to the name.

    Quartier Latin, Montreal

  • The purpose of the OLA is to help ensure that the underpinning activities that are performed by several support team components are aligned to provide the intended SLA.

    Operational-level agreement

  • Rolling Stone has called his playing with Tull as "stout, nimble underpinning, the vital half of a blues-ribbed, jazz-fluent rhythm section".

    Glenn Cornick

  • The introduction of the National Premier Leagues (NPL) in 2013 introduced a direct second tier of soccer in Australia, underpinning the A-League.

    Australian soccer league system

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.