underworld

Etymology

It is formed from English under- + world.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Similar words are German Unterwelt, Dutch onderwereld and Danish underverden.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The abode of the dead, imagined as lying under the earth: Merriam-Webster dates this sense to 1598;^[5] the OED's first quotation is from John Day's Humour out of Breath (1608).^[2][3] Etymonline dates the word to about 1600.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the early 17th century the word also meant the earth itself, the world under the heavens as opposed to heaven, first in Samuel Daniel (1609), a sense now archaic and chiefly poetic.^[2][3][7][5] Tennyson used it in 1847 for the Antipodes or the part of the earth beyond the horizon.^[2] From the mid-19th century it meant a sphere lying below the ordinary one, and so the lowest level of society (1858 in the OED, 1890 in Barnhart);^[2][3][4] the specific sense "the world of criminals and organized crime" appears in 1900, in a McClure's Magazine heading.^[2][3][4] A region below the earth's surface is recorded from 1885.^[2]

Timeline

• 1598 – the place of departed souls.^[5]
• 1608 – the abode of the dead under the earth.^[2][3]
• 1609 – the earth, the world below the heavens.^[2][3]
• 1847 – the Antipodes.^[2]
• 1858 – a lower sphere; the lowest level of society.^[2]
• 1885 – a region below the earth's surface.^[2]
• 1900 – the world of organized crime.^[2][3][4]
• 1929 – attributive use, as in underworld figures.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The world of criminals and organized crime, or the people in it: a journalist with contacts in the underworld.^[8][5][2]
2. In mythology, the place of the dead beneath the earth; Hades.^[8][5][2]
3. A region below the earth's surface or deep in the ocean.^[5][2]
4. A level of society thought of as lying below ordinary life.^[5][2]
5. (archaic) The earth, as the world below the heavens.^[5][2][7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins