undertoad

plural undertoads

1. An underlying threat of disaster beneath the surface of everyday life.

   You're like Garp; you always imagine every terrible thing that could possibly happen. You see undertoads everywhere.

   1994, Louis Owens, Bone Game: A Novel, →ISBN, page 61

   4 more examples

   Fully two thirds of the earth's surface is covered by water. The other one third is covered by a crack team of investigative reporters led by a crusty old bureau chief. This very fact means that the subject of water is fraught with grave political undertoads.

   1979, New West - Volume 4, Issues 14-20, page 11

   But the European framework has, as John Irving would say, 'an undertoad'. Kings in Conflict and Ireland's Fate both underscore the painful conclusion that Ireland, her rights and wrongs, was of little or no consequence within what was seen by...

   1990, Fortnight - Issues 280-290, page 21

   ...the wish-delight of pure belief, unseasoned faith in being true, no cynicism to ease the pain, you said that, tapping-in, as it were, and the visible monologue says, go on, and fire the fall, the undertoad reciting the quick shots are your cards and letters imitating scorn or envy or distrust not present, but pure panic culls retreat from your coins today, today the crossing over into birthdays, into the new cycle...

   2003, Thomas Lowe Taylor, Superprose

   While attempting to plumb the intensity of my feelings about the “deep dark secrets,” known by absolutely everyone, I have been reminded of the “undertoad.”

   2013, Ann Todd Jealous, Caroline T. Haskell, Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief about Racism, →ISBN

2. A mythical monster that lurks underwater to catch unwary swimmers; a personification of an undertow.

   Parents would warn the small children to stay out of the water or the "undertoads" might get them.

   2009, Robert L. Anderson, The Life, Beliefs and Divine Detours of a Tennessee Mountain Man, →ISBN, page 292

   3 more examples

   It was that undertoad what took old Bill's boy clean under the water and never brung him back up,” reminisced Will.

   2004, Joan Cox, To Love, Honor and Obey, →ISBN, page 36

   “Baby, watch out for the undertoad.” I just had this vision of this big toad out there waiting to grab me and take me off to Cuba. She kept saying the undertoad was in the water.

   2005, Kathy Ann Chandler, Honeysuckle Memories, Bitterweed Times, →ISBN, page 25

   He says something about an undertoad and sometimes that happens in Lake Michigan. Giant frogs love the bottom of the lake, Pops has told me, and you have to be very careful.

   2014, Deborah Emin, Scags at 7, →ISBN