Skip to content
Allin

underworld

nouncommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈʌndəˌwɜːld//
  • United States//ˈʌndɚˌwɚld//

The world of the dead, located underneath the world of the living; the afterlife.

noun

  1. 1

    The world of the dead, located underneath the world of the living; the afterlife.

    In Hindu scriptures, the four-eyed dogs Śārvara and Śyāma guard the underworld's entrance.

  2. 2

    That part of society that is engaged in crime or vice, and particularly those involved in organized crime.

    A disproportionate amount of local politicians have connections to the underworld.

  3. 3

    The portion of a game that is set below ground.

    In the underworld theme, low notes create a darker feeling that matches the cave setting. This song also creates a sense of continuity across early Mario games, since it's a remix of SMB1's original underworld theme.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁én Proto-Indo-European *h₁entér Proto-Indo-European *(H)n̥dʰí Proto-Indo-European *-ér Proto-Indo-European *(H)n̥dʰér Proto-Germanic *under Proto-West Germanic *undar Old English under- Middle English under- English under- Proto-Indo-European *weyh₁-? Proto-Indo-European *wiHrós Proto-Germanic *weraz Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *h₂életi Proto-Germanic *alaną Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Germanic *-þiz Proto-Germanic *aldiz Proto-Germanic *weraldiz Proto-West Germanic *weraldi Old English weorold Middle English world English world English underworld From under- + world.

Forms

plural
underworlds
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).