nether
/ˈnɛðə
/adjective
Lower in position: the ballast is suspended from its nether end...
- Not that he knew he was back, he simply found himself in a room full of monsters, lanky, pasty giants clad in disgusting nether garments, who, rather than beat him compassionately into stability, kept their distance and moaned.
- Luckily for Berwick, washing the cast's nether garments is about the only job he doesn't take on in the annual Theatre Royal panto, in which he is the star, writer and co-director.
- I wonder when I reflect under what influence I was brought up, that my heart is not harder than the nether millstone.
Synonyms
lower, low, lower-level, bottom, bottommost, under;
underground, basement
technical basal
Derivatives
nethermost
/ adjective ...- At the ENS he has students translating Kafka's ‘The Hunter Gracchus’: ‘No one will read what I write here, no one will come to help me… My ship is rudderless, it's driven by the wind blowing into the nethermost regions of death.’
- I am singled out for speech because it amuses Soraun to have me brought up from time to time to tell Him how His nethermost subjects fare.
- We would approach finally the nethermost boundary.
Origin
Old English nithera, neothera, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch neder- (found in compounds), neer, and German nieder, from an Indo-European root meaning 'down'.