undergrown

[ uhn-der-grohn, uhn-der-grohn ]

adjective

1. not grown grown to normal size or height:

   sickly and undergrown cattle.

2. having an undergrowth:

   an undergrown thicket tangled with creeping vines.

undergrown

/ ˌʌndəˈɡrəʊn; ˈʌndəˌɡrəʊn /

adjective

1. not having the expected height
2. having undergrowth

Word History and Origins

Origin of undergrown¹

Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; under-, grown

Example Sentences

Are the Olympians being spiteful, leaving you with no company except this undergrown fool?

From Literature

He would set fire to dry grass — watching the short flames trail along the ground and the grass-smoke rise — but only in certain places where the trees were tall and well-spaced, the brush not undergrown, and the conditions not too dangerous.

From Salon

Her caramelized brussels sprouts are, to begin, neither too crunchy nor too soft, and their chile-spiked maple glaze is not too sweet, and whenever you start to remember that brussels sprouts are really just undergrown cabbages you bite into one of the thin, crisp dimes of fried Chinese sausage that Ms. Tong has thrown into the pan.

From New York Times

Hughson and Kaiser don’t have early accounts to prove it, but they believe that grazing changed the dome from a more open savanna of native grasses studded with big old Joshua trees to a dense Joshua woodland that was undergrown by a mixture of native shrubs, bunch grasses and invasive red brome.

From Los Angeles Times

Prone to costume and to aggrandizing mythologies of the self, Piaf, who was of Berber ancestry, believed that Aznavour, who stood at only five feet three inches, would not be successful so long as he looked the way he did: foreign, undergrown.

From The New Yorker

Related Words

• childish
• premature