Improve your vocabulary by Quiz

Use undermine in a sentence

Definition of undermine:

  • (verb) destroy property or hinder normal operations or work against;
  • (verb) hollow out as if making a cave or opening;

Sentence Examples:

While a large annual surplus of revenue may invite waste and extravagance, inadequate revenue creates distrust and undermines public and private credit.

The barriers which at first seemed impregnable in the shape of custom and prejudice have been undermined, and their fall is certain.

Its quickening truths and growing victories were undermining the gigantic usurpations and falsehoods which for ages had been oppressing our world.

May has waged his revenge against me by undermining my financial position by means of slander and driving my into bankruptcy.

It is sensed by other people and their thought is added to yours in undermining your self-confidence, which is the bulwark of achievement.

They have unquestionably been formed by the sinking of the mountain, whose foundations had been undermined by the devouring flames beneath.

There, as in every region where missionaries have sought to undermine or depreciate the authority of the Koran, the attempt has wholly failed.

The Puritans, who had worked so zealously to undermine the proprietary government, had not bargained for such a result as this.

A thing of that sort might sneak into circulation as a book of antiquarian research, and yet, if well-managed, might undermine many prejudices.

Or would it undermine and break down the mind, and turn the clear-headed man of business into imbecility and mental ruin?

The whole of his future life and of Marguerite's future life seemed to have been undermined and contaminated by that single act of omission.

And they turned against him and his administration, and, by their sarcasm and invective, did much to undermine his power.

The first encroachment of reason upon simple faith is always destructive, and hence the Sophists undermined all ideals of goodness and truth.

This constant undermining of its banks, and the fall of them into its current, was the probable cause of its devious course.

Alligator takes small notice of this, and proceeds to undermine the building; but he is subdued after a struggle and chained up.

Fearing so formidable a rival in the affections of his people, he left no means untried to undermine the popularity so deservedly acquired.

New discoveries and experiences are springing up every hour, and doubts and inquiry are burrowing under, and undermining the whole fabric.

These petulant and much disturbed editors and divines must be really afraid that the ground is being undermined beneath their feet.

He perished, not because the power he inherited from them had been carried to excess, but because it had been discredited and undermined.

Any proclivity to depreciate the dignity or to undermine the influence of these institutions must be carefully examined and, if necessary, sternly repressed.

Very likely the newspaper exaggerated, but the case undermines the security that one ordinarily feels in his relationship with the aging.

Among the troopers with us were one or two traitors, whose sole object in remaining was to undermine the loyalty of the rest.

There has therefore been no direct attack on property, but for a long while circuitous means have been taken to undermine its rights.

Under this deceitful glitter, the disease slowly undermined the prosperity of the cities, and the first shock revealed the terrible reality.

They help on that sapping and undermining of the ancient, sturdy simplicity, the solid oak of country character, replacing it with veneer.

It is national just because it seeks to realize the purpose of American national association without undermining or overthrowing the living conditions of American national integrity.

Modern schools and colleges threatened to undermine his ascendancy just as Western competition had by more dubious methods undermined Indian domestic industries.

The works used in keeping the water out of the reservoir, and protecting the new dam, were undermined, and charged with gunpowder.

And as the days lengthened, and the winter crept on toward spring, the peace of the house was slowly but surely undermined.

He was twenty-six years old, and seemed much younger, but it was a sickly sort of youthfulness, undermined by wounds and hardships.

He denounced, in his introductory speech, the existing laws as seriously defective, and tending to undermine the best interests of the community.

Cross died on the 18th January; his habits had no doubt undermined his constitution, and he was therefore the first to succumb.

The marvel is that such industry, coupled with such privations, did not undermine his health, but we hear nothing of injurious results.

The sorcerer, whose pretensions he ridiculed, and whose influence he lost no opportunity of undermining, hated him with an especially malignant animosity.

It seems to me that its chief effort is devoted to blackening and decrying the regime you have chosen, to undermining confidence in it.

I was engaged to trace this forgery to you at the time when you engaged me to undermine the character of this inestimable lady.

At one time it was supposed to have fatally undermined poetry, romance, religion, because it had confused the minds of some poets and critics.

It is impossible for such a man to be a patriot, because he endeavors to undermine the physical and moral vigor of the empire.

This trench, filled with concrete, prevents hog wallows from undermining the floor and keeps the rats from nesting under it.

While awaiting execution in the penitentiary, two miles distant from Carson, a plan for undermining the prison was successful, and he escaped.

It annihilates every respectable quality in the very act of extolling it; it undermines all that adorns and elevates the human character.

He would see more, much more of this taciturn young woman, force her to talk and, if possible, undermine her antipathy to himself.

While the old system remains standing, though undermined, the public reason cannot become familiarized with a class of ideas entirely opposed to it.

He used to wonder, in rare moments of reflection, how long it would take for all this foul seepage to undermine the foundations of life.

This vision of the perfected race has been at work changing national boundaries, destroying hoary institutions, undermining thrones, and making a new world.

Men and women who felt that their Northern brethren had grievously wronged them planned to undermine the stability of the government.

Seated there, he directed the movements of his men, who were endeavoring to undermine and carry by storm a tower of the fortifications.

The moat was wide and deep, and Francis whose physical vigor was undermined by her long confinement, felt her strength failing.

The old gentile society without classes is undermined and brought to fall by the most contemptible means: theft, violence, cunning, treason.

There can be no doubt that various causes had for some time been undermining the long subsisting attachment between Morgan and his men.

It would certainly undermine their health to work so many hours as they were obliged to without a suitable amount of food to produce recuperation.

This settled discontent of women is exerting an insidious influence which is undermining the very foundations of the home as well as the State.

It was the constant efforts of these foes at Court that undermined her influence and neutralized any advantage that she might gain.

The moment she and Gordon were actually alone, she had been impelled to break the silence which was steadily undermining her nerve.

It was no easy task maintaining their footing on the boardwalk, for it was slippery and at places gave where it had been undermined.

It would have been more dangerous to democracy, because undermining democracy from within, whereas the ostracism of Wilkes was an ostentatious blow from without.

Inefficiency, lost time and energy, indecision and stupidity, undermine his hold on the men; while the opposites inspire them to enthusiastic following.

There is no doubt that his constant nervous apprehension and unceasing anxiety materially contributed to undermine his constitution and occasion his death.

The organism is further deeply undermined by lasting grief, and may be mortally affected by fright as well as by sudden joy.

Her tears were on her heart, lying there like lead, slowly yet surely undermining strength, and poisoning the gushing spring of life.

Not infrequently they would undermine the very wall itself, and in times of peace, these defects were always carefully watched and remedied.

The rich soil, of a reddish brown color, is here and there undermined by burrowing animals and caved in, making galloping dangerous.

One of those who feared that the large influx of South and East Europeans would undermine the quality of American life was Madison Grant.

Time, events, or the unaided individual action of the mind, will sometimes undermine or destroy an opinion, without any outward sign of the change.

This designation is unjustified, and only irritates the sufferer, rouses his antagonism, and undermines his confidence in the judgment of his adviser.

The Gopher is a great pest to western cultivators, and by its root feeding and undermining propensities does extensive injury to crops generally.

He was a great student from boyhood; and severe application undermined a system that was never robust, and that soon became hopelessly diseased.

Causes of change had within the past half-century been working underneath the surface of social life, and were rapidly undermining the whole structure.

The ground is soft and marshy, and in some places undermined by the water, so that we have to take great care in walking about.

After he retired from office, his enemies, in order to undermine his further political influence, sowed the falsehood that he was a drunkard.

"A miracle," says Gibbon, "which may be reduced to the supposition that some clerical engineer had secretly undermined the foundations of the rampart."

Later, ulceration takes place in the undermined skin, and the stinking contents of the abscess escape, greatly to the relief of the patient.

Solomon's palatial buildings, while they flattered his pride and ministered to his luxury, tended directly, as we shall see, to undermine his power.

If, however, there is an inherited taint, that taint will make itself felt sooner or later and undermine the vitality of the system.

The apparent robustness of these men, largely due to their indolence, is too often undermined by Cyprian accidents, which are confessed without hesitation.

The financial embarrassment made itself felt everywhere, endangering contracts, paralyzing industry and checking enterprise, and undermining both public and private credit.

Then in mind and matter will be organized a sullen league, a tenacious, stubborn, restless opposition, which will attack everything, undermining and shaking.

In this belief he strictly withheld his wooing, and waited till the barriers that opposed it should be undermined by his systematic attacks.

Causes of change had within the past half-century been working underneath the surface of social life, and were rapidly undermining the whole structure.

Four years they lived in uninterrupted peace, but too free an enjoyment of the good things of this life undermined the constitution of the rector.

Nor can she imagine how she any way undermines the Masculine Empire, or blows the Trumpet of Rebellion to the Moiety of Mankind.

How could I conscientiously allow her to remain in her illusion, and at the same time in that anxiety that evidently undermined her health?

Therefore, it was to circumvent the Northern pacifists quite as much as to undermine the Southern expansionists that he offered compromise and avoided war.

All through the night that followed, the nurse persevered in the remedies which were slowly but surely undermining the awful blood poisoning.

He finds it infinitely easier to eschew alcohol and tobacco than to avoid living conditions that insidiously undermine his aversion to stimulants and narcotics.

Gambling undermines all habits of industry and thrift; it unsettles our reliance on care, patience, thoroughness, ability, and tempts us to rely on chance.

He spent hundreds of thousands yearly to gain friends and admirers, but still he was in constant fear that some enemy would undermine him.

Above all, he shamefully and shamelessly abused women, at once the prop and the undermining influence of his kingly power in days gone by.

By this time inherited nervous maladies, aggravated by excessive physical exercises and by the imprudent use of drugs, had undermined his constitution.

He employed six thousand miners in undermining its defenses with galleries and propping up the walls temporarily with timber smeared with pitch.

A third challenge is to keep the inexorable march of technology from giving terrorists and potentially hostile nations the means to undermine our defenses.

The ordinary crayfish of Western streams has a peculiar habit of burrowing, which at times has occasioned great damage in undermining dikes and dams.

Nor was this the only sad result, for the medical treatment prescribed at the same time completely undermined his hitherto unfailing strength.

One afternoon, I made an effort to rouse myself from this growing lethargy, which had begun to undermine the whole tenor of my character.

I remember reading once about the way a rock was undermined, and the mine filled with gunpowder with an electric wire leading to it.

This stupid folly alienated his best subjects, and sowed the seeds of revolution in the next reign, and tended to undermine the throne.

Steiner had once more set himself secretly to undermine the deputy, whom he held in a state of blockade in the corner of a settee.

Entire streets appeared to be in ruins, as if undermined by some gunpowder explosion, with roofs ready to give way and windows already driven in.

Then vague rumors got afloat in many districts and spread with great rapidity, and these began to undermine the confidence of the strikers.

To have asked others to undertake a danger from which we shrank would have been to undermine our authority and sow the seeds of mutiny.