underword

plural underwords

1. A word placed below another, either literally or metaphorically: a subtext; an inadequate or subordinate term or description; a secret word or phrase; a watchword

   They are invisible fosterers in the sense that neither is named within the text. Each speaks an underword - italicised to indicate its fragmentary, translated nature - [...]

   1998, Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, The Poetry of Seamus Heaney - Page 137

   5 more examples

   The soldier hesitated, and seemed to mistrust the party; he raised his lantern, and cast a scrutinising look at them, but an underword and a mysterious look of recognition removed his doubts, and they passed on.

   1867, The loyalist's daughter, by a royalist - Page 8

   Such underwords of nature thrill With wonder and with mystery; The wind has blown them from the hill, The waves have whispered to the sea; And nature all is manifold Akin with lore we cannot tell, [...]

   1894, E. A. C. M., Parva Seges - Page 34

   Just as the theory of aggregate demand sank to an “underword” of debate, so too did the sociology of fertility, once Nassau Senior and Richard Jones had completed the substitution of the psychological for the physiological interpretation.

   1960, Economica, page 195

   Cordial for cordial, issue for issue, kiss for kiss, stain for stain, grace for grace, wooing for wooing, warmth for heat: each echo arises to its invocation as a kind of “underword,” a ghost word to be laid and replaced by the strength of the scene to which it is summoned.

   1996, T. G. Bishop, Shakespeare and the Theatre of Wonder - Page 161

   To emphasize this point, Blake actually buries the text underground, and worms, rather than plant tendrils, divide the stanzas. And at the base of the plate, in the "underword" that has been created through devotion to a specific idea of death, we see the coffin, covered with turf, and marked with criss-crossed briars.

   1997, Hisaaki Yamanouchi, George Hughes, Corresponding Powers - Page 7