verb
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to give too little food to
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to supply (a furnace, engine, etc) with fuel from beneath
noun
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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underfeedsimple
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underfeedssimple
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have underfedperfect
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has underfedperfect
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am underfeedingprogressive
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are underfeedingprogressive
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is underfeedingprogressive
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have been underfeedingperfect progressive
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has been underfeedingperfect progressive
Past
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underfedsimple
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had underfedperfect
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was underfeedingprogressive
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were underfeedingprogressive
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had been underfeedingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of underfeed
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But many farmers about here will overwork and underfeed all the week, and on Sunday talk about being 'merciful to their beasts.'
From Opening a Chestnut Burr by Roe, Edward Payson
"You shouldn't underfeed the poor kid," said Wally.
From Captain Jim by Bruce, Mary Grant
Those who take foods which are stimulants are very likely to overeat, and when they leave off their stimulants they are equally likely to underfeed themselves.
From The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 The Independent Health Magazine by Daniel, Charles William
Under an unwise or indolent herder the sheep going on an unaccustomed trail will overtravel and underfeed, until in the midst of good pasture they starve upon their feet.
From Introduction to the Science of Sociology by Park, Robert Ezra
One of these boilers is equipped with a Jones underfeed stoker, and is baffled in the regular way.
From Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 Federal Investigations of Mine Accidents, Structural Materials and Fuels. Paper No. 1171 by Wilson, Herbert M.
"Oh, pretty good," said the little woman, shrugging her shoulders, "though they do say she overcharges and underfeeds her lodgers."
From The Silent House by Hume, Fergus
The author observes that “workers under the OT generally suffered the worst possible conditions because the agency specialized in construction,” which meant laboring outside in extreme weather, even while sick, underfed and exhausted.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 24, 2025
I flicked through the document, which includes suggestions that participants were "underfed and overtired".
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2024
Both movies ridicule aristocrats who are underfed yet over-sated: people for whom nothing is ever enough.
From New York Times ● Oct. 22, 2023
Enlisted members of the Nationalist army were often underfed and scorned by their officers, and many ran away or defected to the CCP.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
The reality was decaying, dingy cities, where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes, in patched-up nineteenth-century houses that smelt always of cabbage and bad lavatories.
From "1984" by George Orwell
Many were Wurtembergers, and these for the most part appeared to be quite fit and sturdy, but if you looked at them closely you could see the effects of long, systematic underfeeding.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 24, 2018
That court order stems from a legal action that the Southern Center brought against Sheriff Franklin’s predecessor, Greg Bartlett, who had been underfeeding inmates while taking $212,000 in food money for his personal use.
From New York Times ● Dec. 14, 2017
In a separate project, Dewhurst is analysing levels of exhaled ketones and sulfides in cow breath to reveal underfeeding and tissue breakdown or excess protein in their diet.
From Nature ● Apr. 25, 2017
Dietary patterns that swing too far toward this side of the pendulum risk overfeeding our human cells and underfeeding our microbial cells.
From US News ● Jul. 13, 2015
To secure this end the problem of underfeeding is only one of the problems that must be solved.
From The Children: Some Educational Problems by Darroch, Alexander
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
