underfang

English

Alternative forms

• underfong

Etymology

From Middle English underfangen, underfongen, undervongen, from Old English underfōn (“to receive, obtain, take, accept, take in, entertain, take up, undertake, assume, adopt, submit to, undergo, steal”), from Proto-Germanic *under + *fanhaną (“to take, receive”), equivalent to under- +‎ fang. Cognate with Dutch ondervangen (“to overcome, forestall”), German unterfangen (“to venture, dare”).

Verb

underfang (third-person singular simple present underfangs, present participle underfanging, simple past and past participle underfanged)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To undertake.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To accept; receive.
3. (transitive, obsolete) To insnare; entrap; deceive by false suggestions.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     For that he is so puissant and so strong, / That with his powre he all doth overgo, / And makes them subject to his mighty wrong; / And some by sleight he eke doth underfong.

4. (transitive, obsolete) To support or guard from beneath.