belowground

[ bih-loh-ground ]

adjective

1. situated beneath the surface of the earth; subterranean.
2. no longer living; buried, as in a cemetery (usually used predicatively):

   All those who might have known about the incident are now belowground.

Word History and Origins

Origin of belowground¹

First recorded in 1955–60; below + ground ¹

Example Sentences

To find out what might be crawling belowground, Bruno Buzatto, of Macquarie University in Sydney and the University of Western Australia in Perth, and his colleagues lowered in cups baited with rotting leaf litter to attract hungry invertebrates.

From Popular-Science