underground railroad

American  

noun

1. Also called underground railway.  a railroad running through a continuous tunnel, as under city streets; subway.

2. (often initial capital letters) (before the abolition of slavery) a system for helping African Americans fleeing slavery to escape into Canada or other places of safety.

---

underground railroad British  

noun

1. (often capitals) (in the pre-Civil War US) the system established by abolitionists to aid escaping slaves

---

Underground Railroad Cultural  

1. A network of houses and other places that abolitionists used to help slaves escape to freedom in the northern states or in Canada before the Civil War. The escaped slaves traveled from one “station” of the railroad to the next under cover of night. Harriet Tubman was the most prominent “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.

---

underground railroad Idioms  

1. A secret network for moving and housing fugitives, as in There's definitely an underground railroad helping women escape abusive husbands. This term, dating from the first half of the 1800s, alludes to the network that secretly transported runaway slaves through the northern states to Canada. It was revived more than a century later for similar escape routes.

---

Etymology

Origin of underground railroad

First recorded in 1825–35

Example Sentences

For four decades, the Boritts lived on an 18th-century farm in Gettysburg that had once served as a stop on the Underground Railroad and an ad hoc hospital during the battle., who survives him, as do their three sons.

From The Wall Street Journal

For four decades, they lived on an 18th-century farm in Gettysburg that had once served as a stop on the Underground Railroad and an ad hoc hospital during the battle.

From The Wall Street Journal

It was through that Underground Railroad.

From Literature

She said the Pickled Onion didn’t know about the Underground Railroad back when she lived there, and neither did her husband.

From Literature

His eyes seemed to take in everything around us, and the thought struck me that as a conductor on the Underground Railroad here, he was probably a good detective, too.

From Literature