Home › Glossary › Letter U

underdone

Adjective
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Not fully cooked; here, looking unfinished or insufficiently dressed up.

Detailed Definition
Literally, underdone means not cooked enough. Belloc uses it figuratively to suggest the people in between seem not quite complete, polished, or socially prepared for the occasion.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The people in between / Looked underdone and harassed” (Larkin, “The Large Cool Store”); The underdone loaf sagged pale at its center; Underdone sunlight left the street half-awake; “Underdone” literally means insufficiently cooked; Figuratively, it can suggest people or work left unfinished, raw, or inadequately formed
Additional Notes
The word 'underdone' is unusual in this figurative social description, so readers may pause at the quoted line.; Found in the poem, The Garden Party by Hilaire Belloc
Also Known As
insufficiently cooked lightly prepared half-baked undercooked
Skip to main content