underdog
noun /ˈʌn.də.dɒɡ/
/-dɚ.dɑːɡ/ Definition
the underdog [S] › a person or group of people with less power, money, etc. than the rest of society: As a politician, her sympathy was always for the underdog in society.FailuresAccidents and disastersHigher and lower points of achievement › [C usually singular] in a competition, the person or team considered to be the weakest and the least likely to winCompetitors and participants in sports and games
(Definition of underdog noun from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus
© Cambridge University Press)
Browse related topics
You are looking at an entry to do with Failures, but you might be interested in these topics from the Doing and achieving topic area:
- Abstaining and refraining
- Acting and acts
- Avoiding action
- Becoming better
- Cancelling and interrupting
- Competing and contending (non-sporting)
- Coping and not coping
- Delaying and wasting time
- Describing the leading position
- Efficient and effective
- Expressions telling people to hurry up
- Failing and doing badly
- Getting involved for one's own benefit or against others' will
- Hesitating
- Higher and lower points of achievement
- Hurrying and doing things quickly
- Making progress and advancing
- Making things better
- Performing a function
- Potential
- Reacting and responding
- Repeating an action
- Succeeding, achieving and fulfilling
- Success and achievements
- Successful (things or people)
- Surpassing in quality or number
- Taking part and getting involved
- Trying and making an effort
- Unsuccessful (people and things)
- Waiting
- Ways of achieving things
Browse the Thesaurus
SMART Thesaurus
Synonyms and related words:
- a dog's breakfast idiom
- another/the final nail in the coffin idiom
- bomb noun (FAILURE)
- cock-up noun
- collapse noun (FAILURE)
- crash noun (FAILURE)
- dead duck noun
- dead loss noun
- false start noun (PROBLEM)
- lemon noun (STUPID PERSON/THING)
- lost cause noun
- lulu noun
- mess noun (PROBLEMS)
- mess-up noun
- might-have-been noun
- miss noun (NOT HIT)
- tailspin noun
- turkey noun (FAILURE)
- underachiever noun
- undoing noun
Topic:
Failures
You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:
Word of the Day
be under a cloud
to not be trusted or popular because people think you have done something bad
Blog
Read our blog about how the English language behaves.
New Words
Find words and meanings that have just started to be used in English, and let us know what you think of them.
