How to Use undergird in a Sentence

undergird

verb
  • Many of us have brushed against the threat that undergirds a parking claim.
    Henry Grabar, Harper's Magazine, 21 Apr. 2023
  • And then there are the axioms that undergird the product.
    Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic, 31 Oct. 2017
  • This is the crisis that undergirds so many New York crises.
    New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 5 Apr. 2024
  • Elizebeth also helped to invent the science that undergirds a lot of the NSA’s work.
    National Geographic, 7 Oct. 2017
  • But the vision of change undergirding the media’s sense of itself may not be enough.
    James Poulos, Orange County Register, 4 Feb. 2017
  • The rankings and the systems that undergird them are biased and broken.
    David Rosowsky, Forbes, 11 Jan. 2023
  • As proof, the young president can point to his own quick rise to the top, a stunning success that undergirds many of his pronouncements.
    Adam Nossiter, New York Times, 5 Jan. 2018
  • Institutions may look the same, but the values, norms and freedoms that undergird them have worn away.
    Washington Post, 22 Apr. 2022
  • The victories which Trump can claim—the ones which undergird his inflated win-loss claims—largely came in safe races.
    Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 9 Nov. 2022
  • Previously, the radial belts that undergird the tread rubber were laid-on flat and straight across from one of the tires' shoulders to the other.
    Rich Ceppos, Car and Driver, 3 Oct. 2022
  • Shares of Gap jumped 6.5%, undergirded by Old Navy, which was the only global brand in the company to post growing same-store sales for the quarter.
    Ezequiel Minaya, WSJ, 17 Aug. 2017
  • There is a futile and eternal sense of tardiness that undergirds even the best of journalism.
    Jeb Lund, Esquire, 20 Jan. 2017
  • Entanglement, then, may undergird the structure of space itself, forming the warp and weft that give rise to the geometry of the world.
    Adam Becker, Scientific American, 20 Jan. 2022
  • Entanglement, then, may undergird the structure of space itself, forming the warp and weft that give rise to the geometry of the world.
    Adam Becker, Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2022
  • For five years, Roth — an avid shark lover — worked on the film, traveling the world to expose the barbarity undergirding the market.
    Katie Kilkenny, The Hollywood Reporter, 22 Mar. 2023
  • Of course, the talent-versus-suits morality tale that undergirds Biskind’s books is never that clean.
    Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2023
  • It’s about protecting the economy and the people who undergird it.
    WSJ, 22 Dec. 2020
  • Strong tailwinds like the now-central place games occupy in youth culture, and the fast-evolving art form of game creation will undergird the business in the years ahead, Ball said.
    David Bloom, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2024
  • The canopies, which are undergirded by steel tubes and connected by steel rods, balance each other.
    Blair Kamin, chicagotribune.com, 11 Oct. 2019
  • For the many low-wage workers who undergird the local economy and were displaced by Hurricane Ian, the relief can’t come soon enough.
    Andrew Lawrence, Popular Mechanics, 6 June 2023
  • What happens if these same arguments undergird claims to the presidency on the left?
    Time, 16 Jan. 2020
  • Russo and colleagues found a way to protect them, by undergirding the thin film with graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of pure carbon that is transparent to the electron beam.
    Eric Hand, Science | AAAS, 23 Jan. 2020
  • Early technologies, and the policies and practices that undergird them, were forged to separate the citizen from the slave.
    Malkia A. Cyril, The Atlantic, 25 Nov. 2014
  • All of these things clearly undergird the functioning of our economy, just as a smooth road allows trucks to transport goods to stores and drivers to get to their workplaces.
    Bryce Covert, Star Tribune, 28 Apr. 2021
  • Putin, at least for now, appears to have put down the Prigozhin coup, but the myth that undergirds his rule will have taken its most serious hit yet, and the echoes of 1917 may prove far closer than Putin would like to imagine.
    Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker, 24 June 2023
  • Even fewer knew how to undergird that anger with a palpable sense of love, understanding, and genuine hope for the future.
    Michael Cuby, Them, 1 Aug. 2024
  • What happened to the conservative principles that used to undergird the party for decades?
    CNN, 21 Aug. 2020
  • All About Dinner is a simple, homey book whose forgiving recipes are undergirded by years of thought and learning by doing.
    Corby Kummer, The Atlantic, 11 Dec. 2019
  • On the right, the response to the crash went beyond ostrichlike blindness in the face of the shattering of the assumptions undergirding their public policy views.
    Ganesh Sitaraman, The New Republic, 23 Dec. 2019
  • Mostly absent, however, are the kind of broader coalitions of member states that would undergird UN peacekeepers’ efforts.
    Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Foreign Affairs, 2 Sep. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'undergird.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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