undermining

Pluralunderminings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of undermine.

   Years of erosion were undermining the cliffside path.

   Undermining a colleague's work rarely helps your own career.

   Note

   The verb form behaves differently from the noun for the process. It takes a direct object, as in undermining a colleague's work, and it follows is or was in the progressive (erosion was undermining the path). The noun needs of instead: the undermining of trust. Behind both lies the literal picture of digging beneath a wall to bring it down, and the figurative "work against" still carries that image.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act or process of weakening something or eroding its foundation, support, or strength.

   Like termites hollowing out a wooden beam until the whole structure finally gives way.

   The gradual undermining of public trust took years to repair.

   Engineers feared the undermining of the dam's base by the rushing river.

   Similarerosion, weakening, subversion, sabotage

   Oppositestrengthening, reinforcement, bolstering

   Note

   Usually a mass noun for a gradual wearing-away, it can also be counted, so that a plural names separate acts. The New York Times in 2007 writes of Chris Burden's "institutional underminings," treating a series of challenges as countable things. Use the singular with of for the process (the undermining of trust). Reserve underminings for when you mean distinct instances.

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