Etymology

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Today it means: To set under or beneath. Full definition →

Middle English undersetten ← Old English undersettan
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The story

  1. Old English · inherited fromundersettan“to put, place, or set under, put in the place of another, substitute, falsify, forge, counterfeit, place as a pledge, hypothecate, add, annex, subjoin, make subject, submit, set beneath, esteem less”
  2. Middle English · inherited fromundersetten
  3. English todayunderset

From Middle English undersetten, from Old English undersettan (“to put, place, or set under, put in the place of another, substitute, falsify, forge, counterfeit, place as a pledge, hypothecate, add, annex, subjoin, make subject, submit, set beneath, esteem less”), equivalent to under- + set. Cognate with Dutch ondersetten (“to put beneath”), German untersetzen (“to put beneath, pin”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.