undermine

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Upsetting and destabilizing
bring
bring someone down
delegitimize
destabilization
destabilize
disruptive
disruptively
diversionist
knock/throw someone for a loopidiom
loop
make wavesidiom
skid
stir
turn
undermine
unsettle
unsettling
unspool
unspooling
wave

undercutverb (HIT BALL)

[ I or T ] sports  specialized
If you undercut a ball, you hit it in a way that creates backspin (= when the ball turns round very quickly in the air or on a surface so that it slows down or moves backwards after landing or hitting something):
He had to undercut the ball simply to get it back on line.
Undercutting causes the smooth part of the ball to hit the pitch.
The way to give backspin to a batted ball is to undercut it with the swing.
It is easier to volley an undercut ball.
He tried to alter a bowling action and run-up that made it easy to undercut the ball.
undercut
noun[ C ]
uk /ˈʌn.də.kʌt/ us /ˈʌn.dɚ.kʌt/

undercutnoun[C] (HAIR)

a hairstyle in which the hair is shaved or cut very short at the sides and back of the head and left longer on the top:
When asking for an undercut, you must say how long you want the scissor-cut hair on top to be.
an undercut style
The hair on the top of the head in an undercut is left long enough to be styled in many different ways.
Even if you have curly hair you can still look great in an undercut.
If you have thin hair, you should select a layered undercut to add volume.
The undercut is a cool way to switch up any hairstyle.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Hairstyles
Afro
Afro puff
bandeau
Bantu knots
barnet
blow-dry
bowl cut
chignon
dreadlocks
fade
fringe
hairdo
kiss curl
pony
pudding basin
relaxed
shake out
shoulder-length
sidelock
skinhead

undercutnoun[C] (TREE)

a cut shaped like a V that is made at the bottom of the trunk(= thick main stem) of a tree before it is cut down, to control the direction in which it falls :
The undercut is a V-shaped notch cut into the side of the tree in the direction of falling.
The illustration shows loggers putting the undercut in a tree before felling.
Here you can see a logger using a chainsaw to cut out an undercut wedge that will serve to direct the tree's fall.
In this type of undercut a portion of the front face of the stump is also removed.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Forestry
afforestation
agroforestry
arborist
brush
carbon sink
clearing
cut down
deforest
lumberjack
old growth
ranger
silvan
slash-and-burn
the treeline
tropical rainforest
understorey
unforested
woodcutter
woodsy
woody

undercut | American Dictionary

undercut
verb[ T ]
us/ˌʌn·dərˈkʌt/present participleundercutting | past tense and past participleundercut
to weaken, damage, or cause the failure of something; undermine:
He's got a plan, so I don't want to undercut the effort that he has underway.
To undercut is also to charge less than a competitor:
Large supermarkets can undercut their smaller rivals.

undercut | Business English

undercut
verb[ T ]
 COMMERCEuk /ˌʌndəˈkʌt/us-tt- | undercut | undercut
to sell goods or provide a service for a lower price than someone else:
Large supermarkets undercut corner shops and put them out of business.

Examples of undercut

undercut
He thus at once presupposes and undercuts the allegedly impenetrable barrier between doctor and patient upon which his proposed prophylaxis depends.
An approach to negotiation based on argumentation using rebutting and undercutting was presented, which could aid agents to specialise their particular roles or behaviours.
The problem is that her analysis undercuts this very argument.
If this argument is made, however, then it risks undercutting the utility of this principle for donations within the family as well.
In argumentation terms, the agent refuses the proposal because it can build an argument that undercuts it.
In so doing, he undercuts his own position that appearances of analogical utterances in the internal policy discourse reflect analogical policy diagnoses.
The marly limestone is eroded easily by undercutting beneath the knickpoint on the footslope.
However, on this first answer, the very consistency of that gesture may end up undercutting the phantasmagoria on the level of totality.
Science can also be seen as merely a product of evolution, and this undercuts the claims of evolutionary theory about ethics.
At the very least, therefore, the consent paradigm is effective for undercutting rhetoric that depends upon depicting the fetus as innocent and powerless.
We will use the terminology of undercuts and rebuts.
She argues that this novel undercuts a reader's narrative predictions at every turn, "altering plots by putting them in unexpected places" (125).
If this is a form of historicism, it is one that undercuts the obsession with modernity.
The question is then whether sceptical theism successfully undercuts the empirical argument.
What, then, accounts for the late addition of belladonna and for the attribution of a meaning that undercuts the very notion of a "language"?
See all examples of undercut
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.