- lying or situated beneath, as a substratum.
- fundamental; basic: the underlying cause of their discontent.
- implicit; discoverable only by close scrutiny or analysis: an underlying seriousness in his witticisms.
- (of a claim, mortgage, etc.) taking precedence; anterior; prior.
- belonging to an earlier stage in the transformational derivation of a sentence or other structure; belonging to the deep structure.
- concealed but detectable
- fundamental; basic
- lying under
- (of a claim, liability, etc) taking precedence; prior
