Word family noun world underworld worldliness adjective world worldly ≠ unworldly worldwide adverb worldwide
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishunderworldun‧der‧world /ˈʌndəwɜːld $ ˈʌndərwɜːrld/ noun [singular] 1 SCCthe criminals in a particular place and the criminal activities they are involved in New York’s criminal underworld2 → the UnderworldExamples from the Corpus
underworld• He's accused of having connections with Japan's criminal underworld.• Our reporters uncovered a generation who have been sucked into a dark underworld of solvent abuse and hard drugs.• All of us have our underworld and nether world creatures with whom we carry on some inner conversation.• Virgil too is the only poet who gives clearly the geography of the underworld.• They were seen as the earthly links to the gods of the underworld.• Beneath its coils flows the water of the underworld.• A hot new pachinko machine from a backstreet maker in Osaka has taken the underworld by storm.• He was on his way to the underworld with Pirithous.• Owen has been active in the Los Vegas underworld for years.• The money used to bribe Cronje was raised by Kishan Kumar, a failed Bollywood actor with underworld links, detectives allege. 