dynamic
toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

underlie
in a sentence

Show 3 more sentences
  • 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
  • There lay another of those pieces of pink squareness that underlay the structure of the island.  (source)
    underlay = form the base of
  • You could grasp the mechanics of the Society you lived in, but not its underlying motives.  (source)
    underlying = causing
▲ show less (of above)
Show 10 more with 4 word variations
  • First, that complex systems like weather have an underlying order.†  (source)
  • This distinction between something and nothing-this pivotal separation between being and nonbeing-is quite fundamental and underlies many Creation myths.†  (source)
  • 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)
  • I want you to find what you feel to be the principles that underlie true friendship, and I want you to be able to report to Mr. Hamilton an example of true friendship that demonstrates your principles.†  (source)
  • My friends, as you can see, the chaos of the world has an underlying order.†  (source)
  • Can you name a belief that underlies your actions?†  (source)
  • They learned about the extended family clans that underlay the town's social structure.†  (source)
  • It took a clear, meditative eye like my grandfather's to foresee that they would enlarge and multiply until they would be, not the Shimerdas' cornfields, or Mr. Bushy's, but the world's cornfields; that their yield would be one of the great economic facts, like the wheat crop of Russia, which underlie all the activities of men, in peace or war.†  (source)
  • Understanding the principles underlying defensive magic.†  (source)
  • The idea that underlies this is that communion between mortals is immortal, and that the whole of life is symbolic because it is meaningful.†  (source)
▲ show less (of above)