From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishunderlieun‧der‧lie /ˌʌndəˈlaɪ $ -ər-/ AWL verb (past tense underlay /-ˈleɪ/, past participle underlain /-ˈleɪn/, present participle underlying, third person singular underlies) [transitive] formal CAUSEto be the cause of something, or be the basic thing from which something develops the one basic principle that underlies all of the party’s policies → underlying→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
underlie• This concept underlies a technique for compressing video which has become vitally important in multimedia.• In other words the principle of provenance which underlies archival recordkeeping takes on a different form when electronic information is being considered.• The soil is underlain by hard clay.• Try spider plants, as they absorb formaldehyde, which is found in synthetic carpets, underlay, chipboard and wood treatments.• I am proud of the invitation and the hard-won respect that underlies it.• Social problems and poverty underlie much of the crime in today's big cities.• The possibility that the gender-differentiated self-strategies I proposed could be combined in different ways underlies my intention in proposing them.• This underlies the necessity of the mutuality mentioned in the last paragraphs.• The traffic of ions into and out of neurons underlies their capacity to generate and transmit electrical signals.• To some extent unconventional sources of natural gas, new technology, and new economic incentives, underlie this greater optimism. 