underweening meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

underweening

noun

Etymology From underween + -ing.

Undervaluation.

Here is forbidden an over or underweening of the good things in our selves,1637, A Short Treatise Contayning all the Principall Grounds of Christian Religion, page 211:
But the greatest underweening of this life is to undervalue that, unto which this is but Exordial or a Passage leading unto it.1909, Sir Thomas Browne, Religio medici and other writings:

adj

Etymology From underween + -ing.

Extremely modest.

It is quite possible Challis may think you have an overweening estimate of foreigners and that a particular foreigner may think that your estimate of him is underweening as compared with his own.1995, James Clerk Maxwell, Elizabeth Garber, Stephen G. Brush, Maxwell on heat and statistical mechanics:
But when this same, very likable but nebbishy comedian pretends to be that supremely ambitious youth, Phaethon, the tragic ride in the chariot of the Sun-God is reduced from overweening to underweening.1971, New York: Volume 4

4 more examples

Is it possible to be underweening? Too unassuming in one's opinions?2008, Chet Raymo, When God is gone everything is holy:
In fact, if anything, it is an underweening bureaucracy.2010, Rena Steinzor, Sidney Shapiro, The People's Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public, →ISBN:
This newspaper must not become a platform for the overweening to smother the opinions of the underweening.2011, Ellen B. Holzman, Edmund X. DeJesus, Lunch Reads Volume 3: Two Mystery Short Stories, →ISBN:
'That underweening manner', Shrapnel commented, conveyed 'the reverse of modesty'.2013, John Campbell, Edward Heath: A Biography, →ISBN, page 502: