undersay

present singular third person undersays · participle present undersaying · participle past undersaid · past undersaid

1. obsoleteTo say by way of derogation or contradiction.

   They say, they con to heaven the highway; But by my soul I dare undersay, They never set foot on that same troad, But balke their right way, and strayen abroad.

   1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “September. Ægloga Nona.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Iohn Wolfe for Iohn Harrison the yonger, […], →OCLC

2. To understate.

   Try not to overqualify or undersay what you have to say.

   1981, Patricia A. Moody, Writing Today: A Rhetoric and Handbook, page 120

   2 more examples

   My words undersay it, of course; I mean something rarer than critical, something better than ethical, and perhaps I had better retreat upon such a word as spiritual.

   1899, W.D. Howells, “The New Poetry”, in The North American Review, volume 168, page 586

   How to undersay things when so many oversay them is one thing learnt.

   1913, Laurence Jerrold, The French and the English, page 60