underplot

American  

[uhn-der-plot] / ˈʌn dərˌplɒt /

noun

1. a plot subordinate to another plot, as in a novel.

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underplot British  

/ ˈʌndəˌplɒt /

noun

1. a subsidiary plot in a literary or dramatic work

2. an undercover plot

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Etymology

Origin of underplot

First recorded in 1660–70; under- + plot

Example Sentences

The underplot in Sooky concerns Sooky's efforts to get into a juvenile club whose members wear uniforms and drill like soldiers.

From Time Magazine Archive

If this underplot is due to Shakspere, why is there none like it in all his works?

From A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen and on the characteristics of Shakspere's style and the secret of his supremacy by Spalding, William

As far as my own recollection serves, I do not believe that in any play undoubtedly Shakspere's we have a single instance of an underplot like that of the Gaoler's Daughter.

From A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen and on the characteristics of Shakspere's style and the secret of his supremacy by Spalding, William

Although Hawkesworth’s version was not tolerated, the underplot was none the less pruned in later productions to such an extent that it perforce lost nearly all its pristine wit and fun.

From The Works of Aphra Behn Volume V by Summers, Montague

The main plot is very well managed, as with Plautus once more for a model might properly have been expected; the rather ferociously farcical underplot must surely have been borrowed from some fabliau.

From The Age of Shakespeare by Swinburne, Algernon Charles