The AI-powered English dictionary
third-person singular simple present undertows, present participle undertowing, simple past and past participle undertowed
(transitive) To pull or tow under; drag beneath; pull down. quotations examples
Off in a gallop the General wheeled vanishing, And sped his steed away into the blue, When Lineoln now alone let go his speech Which had before been undertowed by force, [...]
1914, Denton Jaques Snider, Lincoln at Richmond
(transitive) To pull down by, or as by, an undertow. quotations examples
A sense that the air, a sighting of muddy river, or that outcrop of rock so implacably bland in the light of midday, is undertowed by memory.
1998, Richard Gough, David Williams, Ric Allsopp, Performance Research: On Place
I sink because I cannot swim, undertowed to the Centre, abandoning all remembrance of the surface toward the cloud of unknowing, without choice I'm pulled.
2003, Michael T. Leibig, Mike Leibig Traveling in Disguise
(intransitive) To flow or behave as an undertow. quotations examples
Everybody knows this and acts accordingly; but when you say it, it sounds bad and bold, and makes you uncomfortable to hear it, because the puritan blood is still undertowing in your veins.
1917, The Unpopular review
plural undertows
A short-range flow of water returning seaward from the waves breaking on the shore. examples
(by extension) A feeling that runs contrary to one's normal one. examples