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What is "underlie"

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underlie
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
underlie
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a basic/fundamental/underlying assumption
▪ There is a basic assumption in international law that a state will protect its citizens.
an underlying assumption (=a belief that is used as the basis for an idea, but which may not be correct)
▪ There seems to be an underlying assumption in what he says that women are weaker than men.
an underlying motive (=a motive that is not directly stated)
▪ The treaty’s underlying motive was to make Japan a strong ally of the US.
an underlying theme (=one that is important but not very noticeable)
▪ One of the book’s underlying themes is the struggle for human rights.
the fundamental/underlying cause (=the root cause)
▪ The underlying cause of insomnia is often anxiety.
the principle underlying sth
▪ What are the principles underlying this form of treatment?
the underlying aim (=a basic aim, that people sometimes do not notice)
▪ The games all have an underlying aim: survival.
the underlying issue (=the cause, or a more important problem that is related to something)
▪ This research explores some of the underlying issues related to high unemployment.
the underlying/long-term trend (=the trend over a long period of time)
▪ The underlying trend is for rich economies to get richer.
underlying logic (=logic that is important, but not easily noticed)
▪ These word lists show students the underlying logic of English spelling.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
assumption
▪ This assumption underlies literacy programmes both in the developed and developing world.
▪ Parham marked... a pronounced turnabout in the assumptions believed to underlie juvenile mental health law.
▪ Such an assumption underlies the ethnographic papers in this volume, and the argument will be further elaborated below.
▪ No such assumption underlies the attributions of neutrality.
▪ But this decision will need to be informed by an understanding of what theoretical assumptions underlie the different descriptions.
▪ Ageist assumptions underlie policies in the social security field and not surprisingly therefore, these policies reinforce age discrimination.
▪ It should examine the attitudes, values and assumptions that underlie the kind of information that comes from various sources.
factor
▪ Although many factors will underlie such disparity, I suspect there are two, so far unmentioned, which are relevant.
▪ This research aims to investigate the factors that underlie the current restructuring of that sector.
principle
▪ That principle underlies all the policies in this Manifesto.
▪ So the artist, with his brush, is manipulating tinctures of the very principles that underlie all nature.
▪ In other words the principle of provenance which underlies archival recordkeeping takes on a different form when electronic information is being considered.
▪ We have looked at some of the key principles that underlie microeconomics.
▪ The Second Reading of a Bill usually deals with the principles that underlie it.
▪ Underlying principles Four principles therefore underlie randomised prevention trials.
▪ Many of the principles which underlay the provision of rural housing in the nineteenth century reasserted themselves in a new institutional framework.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
underlying cause/principle/problem etc
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Social problems and poverty underlie much of the crime in today's big cities.
▪ The soil is underlain by hard clay.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ I am proud of the invitation and the hard-won respect that underlies it.
▪ In other words the principle of provenance which underlies archival recordkeeping takes on a different form when electronic information is being considered.
▪ The possibility that the gender-differentiated self-strategies I proposed could be combined in different ways underlies my intention in proposing them.
▪ The traffic of ions into and out of neurons underlies their capacity to generate and transmit electrical signals.
▪ This underlies the necessity of the mutuality mentioned in the last paragraphs.
▪ This concept underlies a technique for compressing video which has become vitally important in multimedia.
▪ To some extent unconventional sources of natural gas, new technology, and new economic incentives, underlie this greater optimism.
▪ Try spider plants, as they absorb formaldehyde, which is found in synthetic carpets, underlay, chipboard and wood treatments.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
underlie

Underlay \Un"der*lay`\, n.

  1. (Mining) The inclination of a vein, fault, or lode from the vertical; a hade; -- called also underlie.

  2. (Print.) A thickness of paper, pasteboard, or the like, placed under a cut, or stereotype plate, or under type, in the form, to bring it, or any part of it, to the proper height; also, something placed back of a part of the tympan, so as to secure the right impression.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
underlie

Old English under licgan "to be subordinate to, to submit to;" see under + lie (v.2). Meaning "to lie under or beneath" is attested from c.1600; figurative sense of "to be the basis of" is attested from 1852 (implied in underlying). Similar formation in Old High German untarliggan; German unterliegen.

Wiktionary
underlie

vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To lie in a position directly beneath. 2 (context transitive English) To lie under or beneath. 3 (context transitive English) To serve as a basis of; form the foundation of.

Related phrases:
WordNet
underlie

  1. v. be or form the base for

  2. lie underneath

  3. [also: underlying, underlay, underlain]

Usage examples of "underlie".

No: the change that destroys annuls the form but leaves the underlying substance: and that could not happen to anything except a compound.

The second principle which underlies all the most recent methods for extracting the grease from the wool, consists in treating the fibre with some solvent like benzol, carbon bisulphide, petroleum spirit, carbon tetrachloride, etc.

But, on the other hand, the assumption that men are unclassifiable, because practically homogeneous, which underlies modern democratic methods and all the fallacies of our equal justice, is even more alien to the Utopian mind.

Joseph de Maistre and his disciples have advocated, let us on the other hand be equally on our guard against accepting the material facts which underlie these beliefs as their deepest foundation and their exhaustive explanation.

While thus recognizing the natural origin of this consecrated symbol, while discovering that it is based on the sacredness of numbers, and this in turn on the structure and necessary relations of the human body, thus disowning the meaningless mysticism that Joseph de Maistre and his disciples have advocated, let us on the other hand be equally on our guard against accepting the material facts which underlie these beliefs as their deepest foundation and their exhaustive explanation.

While Cleggett was still wondering what significance could underlie this unusual form of matutinal exercise, Dr.

When satiric discourse represents the disturbances of culture, the metalinguistic function indicates how language embodies the underlying disorders.

He was merely asserting that the results of a deductive or experimental process could be considered accurate only if the assumptions or source material underlying that process were accurate as well, an element of scientific methodology centuries ahead of its time.

Rather, it was a lightning bolt blasting the moonscape, melting the regolith and its underlying rock, crushing the mantle, vaporizing everything within hundreds of kilometers of ground zero.

He was adrift in the Old Sea of preconsciousness, the inert and timeless realm that underlay the collective unconscious of humanity.

Star Trek and Star Wars novelizations, many of which tell lively and entertaining stories, but which, by predesign and stern publishing decree, do nothing at all to advance the underlying series concept beyond its starting point.

If interpersonal concerns underlie your procrastinating, see chapters 8, 9 and 10.

Underlying possession, procreation, drive and procurement is our sense of human individuality or ego.

This is no slight evidence that in the animal and vegetable realms the Reason-Principles are the makers and that Nature is a Reason-Principle producing a second Reason-Principle, its offspring, which, in turn, while itself, still, remaining intact, communicates something to the underlie, Matter.

A new dimension is provided to the investigator via the profiling technique, particularly in cases where the underlying motiva tion for the crime may be suddenly hidden from even the more-experienced detective.