Sample Sentences for
underlie
(editor-reviewed)

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    I stopped for a long time to let my nerves settle, then leaned back from my tools and stared up at the face above, searching for a hint of solid ice, for some variation in the underlying rock strata, for anything that would allow passage over the frosted slabs.  (source)
    underlying = below the surface
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    There lay another of those pieces of pink squareness that underlay the structure of the island.  (source)
    underlay = form the base of
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    You could grasp the mechanics of the Society you lived in, but not its underlying motives.  (source)
    underlying = causing
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Show 10 more with 4 word variations
  • •
    First, that complex systems like weather have an underlying order.†  (source)
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    I just wanted us to be talking and joking comfortably, like we were on the couch together back home, but some tension underlay everything.†  (source)
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    This distinction between something and nothing-this pivotal separation between being and nonbeing-is quite fundamental and underlies many Creation myths.†  (source)
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    Yang, the light, active, masculine principle, and Yin, the dark, passive, and feminine, in their interaction underlie and constitute the whole world of forms ("the ten thousand things").†  (source)
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    Do you think you can point to an underlying cause?†  (source)
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    They learned about the extended family clans that underlay the town's social structure.†  (source)
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    Jo soon found that her innocent experience had given her but few glimpses of the tragic world which underlies society, so regarding it in a business light, she set about supplying her deficiencies with characteristic energy.†  (source)
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    Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad?†  (source)
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    In every phase of the surgery, this was the underlying question.†  (source)
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    Since coming to the United States, Deo had read some of the history that underlay what he'd endured.†  (source)
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