Insidious vs Undermine - What's the difference?
insidious | undermine |
Producing harm in a stealthy, often gradual, manner.
* 1847 , George Lippard, The Quaker City: or, The monks of Monk-Hall
* 1997 , Matthew Wood, The book of herbal wisdom: using plants as medicine
* 2007 , Sharon Weinstein, Ada Lawrence Plumer, Principles and practice of intravenous therapy
Intending to entrap; alluring but harmful.
* Nathaniel Hawthorne
* 1948 , D.V. Chitaley (editor or publisher), All India Reporter , volume 3, page 341:
* 1969 , Dorothy Brewster, John Angus Burrell, Dead reckonings in fiction
* 2005 , Anita Desai, Voices in the City , page 189:
* 2007 , Joseph Epstein, Narcissus Leaves the Pool , page 171:
(nonstandard) Treacherous.
* 1858 , Phineas Camp Headley, The life of the Empress Josephine: first wife of Napoleon
* 1912 , Ralph Straus, The prison without a wall
To dig underneath (something), to make a passage or for destructive or military purposes; to sap.
* 2009 , (Diarmaid MacCulloch), A History of Christianity , Penguin 2010, p. 312:
(figuratively) To weaken or work against; to hinder, sabotage.
* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=April 19, author=Josh Halliday, work=the Guardian
, title=
As an adjective insidious
is producing harm in a stealthy, often gradual, manner.As a verb undermine is
to dig underneath (something), to make a passage or for destructive or military purposes; to sap.insidious
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Strong and vigorous man as he looks, Livingstone has been for years the victim of a secret and insidious disease.
- At some point in time they may become the source of an insidious cancer.
- The nurse always must be alert to signs of slow leak or insidious infiltration.
- The insidious whisper of the bad angel.
- All these facts clearly appear to me now to establish that the sanctioned scheme was a part of a bigger and […] more insidious scheme which was to hoodwink the creditors and to firmly establish and consolidate the position […]
- The atmosphere of this insidious city comes out to meet him the moment he touches the European shore; for in London he meets Maria Gostrey just over from France.
- This seemed to her the worst defilement into which this insidious city had cheated her and in her agitation, she nearly ran into the latrine, […]
- This is the insidious way sports entrap you: you follow a player, which commits you to his team. You begin to acquire scraps of utterly useless information about teammates, managers, owners, trainers, agents, lawyers.
- Hansel and Gretel were lured by the witch’s insidious gingerbread house.
- But with whom do you contract that alliance? With the natural enemy of France — that insidious house of Austria — which detests our country from feeling, system, and necessity.
- ‘Believe me,’ he shouted, ‘these insidious folk talk dangerous nonsense. I hear they are spouting out their ridiculous platitudes not five miles from this park in which we are standing…’
- The battle was lost due to the actions of insidious defectors.
Derived terms
* insidiously * insidiousnessReferences
* * *undermine
English
Verb
(undermin)- Martin, for instance, had on one occasion undermined a tree sacred to old gods, then stood in the path of its fall, but forced it to fall elsewhere by making the sign of the Cross.
Free speech haven or lawless cesspool – can the internet be civilised?, passage=The growing use of social media to spread anger and dissent in the Arab world has been hailed by western governments as one of the chief justifications for a completely unfettered internet. The US is reportedly funding the secret rollout of technology in Iran in an effort to undermine internet censors in the country.}}