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/ˈəndərtˌoʊ/ Listen

Undertow

noun

An inclination contrary to the strongest or prevailing feeling.

The seaward undercurrent created after waves have broken on the shore. Synonyms: sea-poose, sea-purse, sea-puss, sea purse, sea puss.

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Etymology of 'Undertow'

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"Undertow" Quotes from Famous Books

... and wave; Old ones, like as grave and grave; Tide on tide of human faces With what human undertow! Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief!— Tell me of the eddying spaces, Show me where the lost ones go; Like and lost, as leaf and leaf. What's your secret grim refrain Back and forth and back again, Once, and now, and always so? ...

— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody

... if they went in there they undoubtedly have been carried out. The undertow is very strong in a storm such as this," said Mrs. Livingston sadly. She had hurried down to the beach upon seeing the others running in that ...

— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge

... make it a reservation for those hardier swimmers who failed to find contentment between beach and float. Outside the bar the surf boiled in spume-crowned, and went out again sullenly howling an in-sucking of sands and an insidious tug of undertow. ...

— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... prayed no more. Short was her time. See, there sank the sun in glory; and there the great rollers swept along past the sullen headland, where the undertow met wind and tide. She would think no more of self; it was, it seemed to her, so small, this mendicant calling on the Unseen, not for others, but for self: aid for self, well-being for self, salvation for self—this doing of good that good might come to self. ...

— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... mild surf of the shore, distant enough to make it a reservation for those hardier swimmers who failed to find contentment between beach and float. Outside the bar the surf boiled in spume-crowned, and went out again sullenly howling an in-sucking of sands and an insidious tug of undertow. ...

— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

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