underwrite

present singular third person underwrites · participle present underwriting · past underwrote · archaic past underwrit · participle past underwritten · archaic participle past underwrit

1. transitiveTo write below or under; subscribe.
2. intransitiveobsoletetransitiveTo subscribe (a document, policy etc.) with one's name.
3. transitiveTo sign; to put one's name to.
4. transitiveTo agree to pay by signing one's name; subscribe.
5. transitiveSpecifically, to assume financial responsibility for something, and guarantee it against failure.

   1 more example

   Dr. Beeching's obvious intent is that if Scottish—and similarly unprofitable English and Welsh—railways are to be maintained, it must be done by an unconcealed subsidy; he is determined that the railways shall no longer be preoccupied with—and derided for—immense deficits which include the burden of social services the State must openly underwrite, if it wants them.

   1962 October, “Talking of Trains: Passed to you, Mr. Macmillan”, in Modern Railways, page 220

6. intransitivebusinessTo act as an underwriter.

   The broker who procures the insurance […]ought not, by underwriting the policy, to deprive the parties of his unbiased testimony.

   1810, Samuel Marshall, Of marine insurance

7. transitiveTo support, lend support to, guarantee the basis of.
8. obsoletetransitiveTo submit to; put up with.

   Diſguiſe the holy ſtrength of their command: / And vnder write in an obſeruing kinde

   c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]