Meaning of underneathness | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The quality of being underneath.
   uncountable
2. A space (literal or figurative) that is underneath.
   uncountable

Examples

“While seeing at last⟳ beneath the surface of things, he sees that underneathness is not so much a system as a unity. He does glimpse the system: what he sees is the trace of a process⟳, and that process⟳ is a system at work⟳.”

“A house’s underneathness is crushing—weight of sleep⟳ pressing from the flats above, little lumps of coal releasing miniature avalanches which rattle down the black pile, furnace grimly dead, asbestos-covered arms prying into every corner.”

“1973, Edward Wellen, “Chalk Talk⟳,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March⟳ 1973, p. 52, reprinted in The 21st Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: 25 Stories by Edward Weller, Wildside Press⟳, 2015, But below the surface are the reelings and writhings that make⟳ the floor of a Freudian jungle a lively place⟳. Dr. Chomsky calls this underneathness, this grimmer grammar, the ‘deep structure⟳.’”

CEFR level