underhope

U1N1D2E1R1H4O1P3E1

noun

A lowered expectation or hope.

OriginMiddle English underhopen →
Scrabble 15
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Meanings

noununderhope (countable and uncountable, plural underhopes)

plural underhopes

  1. countableuncountableA lowered expectation or hope.

    Yesterday they went with underhopes of home And mostly glad to go - how impotent to save […]

    1973, James Gibson, Let the Poet Choose, page 55
    2 more examples

    Of baffled struggling crowds and broken cries And the great stedfast underhope that never dies.

    1896, Prosser Hall Frye, The Substance of His House, page 44

    He also has a greater hope, what he might have called a tremulous underhope: that the neighbours who say that 'he hears it not now' might be mistaken.

    2005, The Thomas Hardy Journal, volumes 21-22, page 183

Origin

  1. Middle Englishunderhopen“to consider as secondary, discount”
  2. Englishunderhope

Perhaps from Middle English underhopen (“to consider as secondary, discount”), equivalent to under- + hope.

More words from Middle English

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

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

MLA

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

Chicago

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

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