underarrest

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verb

To arrest at a disproportionately low rate.

Opposite
overarrest
Scrabble 12
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Meanings

verbunderarrest (third-person singular simple present underarrests, present participle underarresting, simple past and past participle underarrested)

present singular third person underarrests · participle present underarresting · participle past underarrested · past underarrested

  1. transitiveTo arrest at a disproportionately low rate.

    Sorry, I’m Italian, and let’s say I see that Sicilian policemen arrest less people in Sicily. This could be for two reasons, one is that everybody else overarrests, or the Sicilian policemen underarrest. And can you tell those two things apart?

    2020 June 12, Kate Waldock and Luigi Zingales, “Should we defund the police?”, in Capitalisn't, archived from the original on 20 Feb 2026

Synonyms & antonyms

Opposite
overarrest

Origin

From under- + arrest.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

underarrest. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/underarrest

MLA

“underarrest.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/underarrest. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “underarrest,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/underarrest.

Source: underarrest on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.