Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The burden or accompaniment of a song; a refrain.
- noun A subordinate strain; an underlying meaning.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The burden of a song; the chorus; the refrain.
- noun Accompanying strain; subordinate and underlying meaning; accompaniment; undertone.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The burden of a
song ; thechorus ; therefrain . - noun Accompanying strain;
subordinate andunderlying meaning ;accompaniment ;undertone .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Whether he truly registers, or can register, having been elsewhere, the subtle "undersong" of this country.
Liblogs News Feed 2009
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Again, one would have to be very literal-minded indeed not to hear the delicious irony that is Kate's undersong, centered on the great line "I am asham'd that women are so simple."
"[O]ddly tender" M-mv 2007
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Again, one would have to be very literal-minded indeed not to hear the delicious irony that is Kate's undersong, centered on the great line "I am asham'd that women are so simple."
Archive 2007-01-01 M-mv 2007
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For a more brutal sense of what is at stake in these overlapping materials, contexts, and drafts, where -- with Shelley so often providing the stated melody or haunting undersong -- Brecht undertakes to write alternately despairing and enraged elegy, see Brecht's seven stark, ultimately-discarded lines from the first sketch of "Die Verlustliste"
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I waited patiently enough for what seemed a long time, trying to catch the undersong that thrilled through the forest, "the horns of elf-land faintly blowing," the hum such as bees at home make when late May sees the chestnut trees in flower.
Morocco S.L. Bensusan
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Good-byes rang out to the undersong of "We want more Beer."
Captivity M. Leonora Eyles 1924
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O yes, clean hands is the chant and only one man knows its sob and its undersong and he dies clenching the secret more to him than any woman or chum.
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Like a throbbing undersong -- the fiendish accompaniment to the devils 'chorus -- the gossip of the station as detailed by Tessa ran with glib mockery through her brain.
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The devils 'tattoo on the roof had sunk to a mere undersong, a fitting accompaniment as it were to the electricity in the room.
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The afternoon was past its height, but bright yet, with the undersong of the wind and of Thunder Run.
The Long Roll Mary Johnston 1903
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