Both Uses of
undermine
in
Middlemarch
- If the truth should be that some undermining disease was at work within him, there might be large opportunity for some people to be the happier when he was gone; and if one of those people should be Will Ladislaw, Mr. Casaubon objected so strongly that it seemed as if the annoyance would make part of his disembodied existence.†
Chpt 4undermining = weakening gradually
- To get their own bread they must overdose the king's lieges; and that's a bad sort of treason, Mr. Mawmsey—undermines the constitution in a fatal way.†
Chpt 5 *undermines = weakens gradually
Definition:
weaken gradually