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Underestimate   /ˈəndərˈɛstəmˌeɪt/  /ˈəndərˈɛstəmət/   Listen
Underestimate

noun
1.
An estimation that is too low; an estimate that is less than the true or actual value.  Synonyms: underestimation, underrating, underreckoning.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Underestimate" Quotes from Famous Books



... luxury of kings, passed from tawny carriers to sorters. Elsewhere, coarse furs, obtained at greater risk, but owing to the abundance of big game, less valuable for the hunter, were sorted and valued. With a reckless underestimate of the beaver-skin, their unit of currency, Indians hung over counters bartering away the season's hunt. I frankly acknowledge the Company's clerks on such occasions could do a rushing business selling tawdry ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... underestimate the gravity of the situation, or to assume that the most numerous and conservative nation on the globe has been suddenly transformed from foreign haters to foreign lovers. The world may again have occasion to realize that the momentum of countless myriads is an awful force even ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... of fish caught, corrected by Karlek by the simple process of multiplying the sum by two, and with a bit more added by myself to be sure not to underestimate it, formed all the legal data I needed. The lean, scrawny figure of Ike, twisting and squirming with evident uneasiness, awaited my arrival at the appointed time. Ike's fear of "t' Law" was the superstition of a child. It was to him a great big man waiting to pounce ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... think that I give quite enough credit to the Rough Riders as compared to the regulars in this Guasimas fight, and believes that I greatly underestimate the Spanish force and loss, and that Lieutenant Tejeiro is not to be trusted at all on these points. He states that we began the fight ten minutes before the regulars, and that the main attack was made and decided by us. This ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... for ten hours with varying success. There was great determination on both sides, as is shown by the heavy losses. The Americans lost 267 killed and 456 wounded; Santa Anna stated his loss at 1500, which was probably an underestimate. He left 500 dead on the field. The battle was a decisive one, and left northeastern Mexico in the hands of ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... golf course should not be fifty yards longer. One must not be like the man who in the discussion of bimetallism a few years ago used to keep his wife awake at night expounding to her the iniquities and inequalities of a single standard. It is safer to underestimate than to overestimate the endurance and patience ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... wolves taught their fair pursuers to underestimate the ferocious nature of the beasts, as we shall ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... He is fond of experiments, difficulties and dangers, and I divine that it would be his preference to be known best by his painting, in which he handles landscape with equal veracity. It is a pity that the critic is unable to contend with him on such a point without appearing to underestimate that work. Mr. Reinhart has so much to show for his preference that I am conscious of its taking some assurance to say that I am not sure he is right. This would be the case even if he had nothing else to show than the admirable picture entitled "Washed Ashore" ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... the Hon. Andrew H. Green, who spoke purely in the interests of a private citizen, one who desired the retention of the territory acquired by the American Government solely because he wished that the people of the United States should not underestimate the value of their grand ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... the pamphlets where he set out the project, only allowed for a small mobile garrison, but he confessed later that the difficulties which he knew he would meet with in the Belgian Parliament over the credits for the fortifications made him underestimate the number of men required. Besides which, the conditions of war have been greatly modified during the twenty-five years which have passed, owing to the increased power of siege guns. So that it may be laid down that 80,000, if not 100,000, men ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... into the morass that sheltered his left. There was a small, unfinished redoubt in front of the breastworks on the river bank. Thirteen pieces of artillery were mounted on the works. [Footnote: Almost all British writers underestimate their own force and enormously magnify that of the Americans. Alison, for example, quadruples Jackson's relative strength, writing: "About 6,000 combatants were on the British side; a slender force to attack double their number, intrenched to the teeth in works bristling with bayonets ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... while to be hasting across the sea, is entitled to scant respect from any indications in its favour. The faulty execution of the original plan, which enabled the enemy to concentrate and to accumulate adequate means of resistance, and the subsequent underestimate of the endurance of the garrison, bear the same mark. In issuing their ultimatum, in opening the campaign, in combining against Dundee, and finally in investing Ladysmith, the Boers exceeded decisively that five minutes of delay upon which, ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan

... has returned to the seat of Government. The itinerary appears to have been somewhat prematurely cut short; but no one is likely to so ridiculously underestimate the sterling qualities of His Honour as to conceive the possibility of his absence when difficulty and danger imperatively command his presence at the head of public affairs. The conclusions which Mr. Kruger has derived from converse with his faithful burghers are likely ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... underestimate the very prominent part taken all through this spring and summer of 1858 by the collection of specimens on the seashore. My Father had returned, the chagrin of his failure in theorizing now being mitigated, to what was his real work in life, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... intellectual grandeur of the man with whom he was grappling. The facility with which he could see all sides of a question, and the vivid imagination which lit his mental processes, were a revelation. We always underestimate the ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... exclaimed. "What a fellow you are, Ellery, to stick to me this way! But don't underestimate my difficulty. I'm not an absolute coward, but I've been beaten not only once, but on both flanks and in the middle. Everything in life seemed to be giving me a kick. I was at the bottom when you came in, but if you believe in me, perhaps I'll begin to believe in myself again. You've ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... the finest fields of legitimate graft I ever licked my lips to look at. The trouble with you, Mul, is you're too high-toned. You want to play the swell mobs-man from post to finish. A quick touch and a clean getaway for yours. Now, that's all right; that has its good points, but you don't want to underestimate the advantages of a good blackmailing connection.... If I can keep Dorothy quiet long enough, I look to the Hallam and precious Freddie to be a great comfort to ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... have known Barkis ever since he was a baby. I have tossed him in the air, to his own delight and to the consternation of his mother, who feared lest I should fail to catch him on his way down, or that I should underestimate the distance between the top of his head and the ceiling on his way up. Later I have held him on my knee and told him stories of an elevating nature—mostly of my own composition—and have afterwards put these down upon paper and sold them to syndicates at great ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... objection which I think it is well to meet. He urges that "the history of religious phenomena exemplifies in the most striking manner the continuity of modern and primitive culture; but there is a tendency on the part of students to underestimate this continuity, and, by explaining it away on a theory of survivals, to lose the only opportunity we have of deducing the permanent ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... digestible by diluting it with one-third water. A little sugar may be added. It is very advisable to add from one-half to one ounce of lime water to each pint of milk fed. Frequent feeding is very necessary at first, and we must not underestimate the quantity of milk necessary to keep the colt in good condition. It should be taught to eat ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... bind the characters of two strong people together without mutilating one or the other, or perhaps both. Jerry will believe everything you tell him and continue to believe it unless you deceive him. He's ingenuous, but I hope you won't underestimate him." ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... authors, had a tendency to underestimate the value of his most popular book. At any rate, it is certainly on record that he thought considerably more of some of his other works than he did of the immortal Pickwick. But The Pickwick Papers has maintained its place through generations, and retains it to-day, ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz

... mistaken assumptions, incorrect assumptions (error) 495. V. misjudge, misestimate, misthink[obs3], misconjecture[obs3], misconceive &c. (error) 495; fly in the face of facts; miscalculate, misreckon, miscompute. overestimate &c. 482; underestimate &c. 483. prejudge, forejudge; presuppose, presume, prejudicate[obs3]; dogmatize; have a bias &c. n.; have only one idea; jurare in verba magistri[Lat], run away with the notion; jump to a conclusion, rush to a conclusion, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... attitudes upon Elysian ones," James said, patiently looking up from his book. "And don't underestimate Magnolia's capabilities. She has sense organs, and motor organs, too. She can't move from where she is, because she's rooted to the ground, but she's capable of turgor movements, like certain Terrestrial ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith

... grate with a comfortable feeling of complacency. He had helped Mrs. Hilbrough to launch her little bark without any untoward accident; he had secured for the Baron an honor which the latter would certainly not underestimate. Then, too, he had obliged Mrs. Gouverneur while he gratified his own inclinations in escorting Miss Callender to the reception. Whenever he came around to Phillida he found the only uncomfortable spot ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... "Underestimate the devil!" shouted Mr. Sheehan, uncontrollably excited. "You talk about influence! He's been the worst influence this town's ever had—and his tracks covered up in the dark wherever he set his ugly foot down. These ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... unfortunate than he who succeeds too quickly and too easily. His success makes him exaggerate his own importance and ability. It makes him underestimate the strength of those who compete with him, and the difficulty of winning in ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... the sense for rhythm and music, both Unamuno and Wordsworth seem to be limited to the most vigorous and masculine gaits. This feature is particularly pronounced in Unamuno, for while Wordsworth is painstaking, all-observant, and too good a "teacher" to underestimate the importance of pleasure in man's progress, Unamuno knows no compromise. His aim is not to please but to strike, and he deliberately seeks the naked, the forceful, even the brutal word for truth. There is in him, however, a cause of formlessness from which Wordsworth ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... corporation officials, lawyers, physicians, engineers, and architects, but most of them have attained their success as capitalists, and they are able to maintain a position of prominence and ease because they use rather than hoard their wealth. It is easy to underestimate the usefulness of human beings who finance the world of industry, and in estimating the returns that are due to members of the various social classes this form of public service that is so essential to the prosperity of all ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... that the capitalists are relying more and more on imperialism, even though they know that the conquest of colonies is no longer possible to the extent it was before, and realize that the cost of maintaining armaments is rapidly becoming greater than colonial profits. But this also is to underestimate the resources of capitalism and its capacity for a certain form of progress. If the capitalists are not to be forced to concessions, neither are they to be forced, unless in a very great crisis, to reactionary measures that in themselves bring no profit. The progressive ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... think that," she murmured with soft regret. "And I think you underestimate Giles Winterborne. Remember, I was brought up with him till I was sent away to school, so I cannot be radically different. At any rate, I don't feel so. That is, no doubt, my fault, and a great blemish in me. But I hope you will put up with ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... importance. It is generally known that, underlying the earth's surface at various depths, there is a large quantity of free water. Those living in humid climates often overestimate the amount of water so held in the earth's crust, and it is probably true that those living in arid regions underestimate the quantity of water so found. The fact of the matter seems to be that free water is found everywhere under the earth's surface. Those familiar with the arid West have frequently been surprised by the frequency with which water has been found at comparatively ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... must not, you really must not, send me away like this. You speak of your written work. Don't think that I underestimate it because I have not alluded to it before. I myself honestly believe that it was those wonderful articles of yours in the Nineteenth Century which brought back to a reasonable frame of mind thousands who were half led away by the glamour ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... than I have. But they are merely the brakes and wheels of the engine, to which principles and inspirations are, and must always be, the elements of life and motion. It is to entreat you therefore, in your coming letter and address, not to underestimate the tremendous driving power of this Tariff issue, and to beg you, not even to seem to qualify it, or to abridge its terms in a mistaken attempt to ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... particular black brook. But for several generations the boys and girls of New England had read the "Day of Doom" as if Mr. Wigglesworth, the gentle and somewhat sickly minister of Malden, had veritably peeped into Hell. It is the present fashion to underestimate the power of Wigglesworth's verse. At its best it has a trampling, clattering shock like a charge of cavalry and a sound like clanging steel. Mr. Kipling and other cunning ballad-makers have imitated the peculiar ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... scientific philosophy naturally affects his ability as an historian and critic. In his Bridgewater Treatise, he indulged in a fling at mathematics, for which we have never wholly forgiven him; and in the present volume we see repeated evidence of his underestimate of the value of the sciences of Space and Time. He says, Vol. I. p. 600, that it was an "erroneous assumption" in Plato to hold mathematical truths as "Realities more real than the Phenomena." But to us it seems impossible to understand any ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... be wiser, and perhaps in better taste,—here Senator Hanway smiled with becoming modesty,—if others were permitted to do that. If his good friends of the Anaconda who had come so far in his honor—a mark of regard which he, Senator Hanway, could never forget nor underestimate—gave him their company to the Capitol, he would be proud to make them acquainted with Senators Gruff and Loot and Toot and Drink and Dice and others of his friends, and those gentlemen would go more deeply ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... of error in judging intelligence from common observation is the tendency to overestimate the intelligence of the sprightly, talkative, sanguine child, and to underestimate the intelligence of the child who is less emotional, reacts slowly, and talks little. One occasionally finds a feeble-minded adult, perhaps of only 9- or 10-year intelligence, whose verbal fluency, mental liveliness, ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... that I am vaunting idly," she said. "Perhaps I am. I do not know what I shall do. But, monsieur, for your own sake do not underestimate my capacity for doing you harm. I mean that ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... of his men carried fewer than two revolvers, and the great majority carried four, one pair on the belt and another on the saddle. Some extremists even carried a third pair down their boot-tops, giving them thirty-six shots without reloading. Nor did he underestimate the power of mobility. Each man had his string of horses, kept where they could be picked up at need. Unlike the regular cavalryman with his one mount, a Mosby man had only to drop an exhausted animal at one of these private ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper

... but it aims to impart sufficiently detailed information about the various topics discussed to make the college student feel that he is advanced a grade beyond the student in secondary school. There is too often a tendency to underestimate the intellectual capabilities of the collegian and to feed him so simple and scanty a mental pabulum that he becomes as a child and thinks as a child. Of course the author appreciates the fact that most college ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... with such an entanglement. But he could not for a moment bring himself to believe that there could have ever been any need for Helena to have recourse to the knife. He could not see Lord Loudwater resisting her when she became really angry; he must have given way. None the less, he did not underestimate the awkwardness, the danger even, of her having paid that visit and had that quarrel at such ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson

... believe it. I must tell you more of Crochard, some day. Beside him, I am a mere bungler—I realise it more deeply each time I meet him. And I assure you that I am not one to underestimate myself." ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... Quimbleton, "perhaps you are not aware of the strength and tenacity of the sentiment we represent. I assure you that if you underestimate the power of the millions of thirsty mouths that speak through us, you will rue ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... that is here advocated implies no underestimate of little things; it only condemns want of discrimination among them. Even the painstaking German scientist is no devotee to all things that are little. Carrying on his investigation with reference to some definite problem, he is concerned only with such ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... not amuse herself with such engaging toys? Vivacity and prettiness and cruelty are the ordinary attributes of kittenhood. So you amused yourself. And I submitted with clear eyes, because I could not help it. Yes, I who am by nature not disposed to underestimate my personal importance—I submitted, because your mockery was more desirable than the adoration of any other woman. And all this helped to make a master-poet of me. Eh, why not, when such monstrous passions spoke through me—as if some implacable god elected ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... The results are never what we expect, possibly because the effort is never what we imagine it to be. We continually underestimate the opposing force of evil, the difficulty of dealing with a humanity which falls so easily under the slightest temptation. It is not that sinners decline to hear the Word of God, but that those who profess themselves to be the ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... not. He's got too much to lose. I put the fear of God in his heart for fair. I couldn't afford to have him put Zurich on his guard. It won't do to underestimate Zurich. The man's a crook; but he's got brains. He hasn't overlooked a bet since he came here. Zurich is Cobre—or mighty near it. He's in on all the good things. Big share in the big mines, little share in ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... "to prove to himself that he's the best man on this planet. Because he's physically least capable of living here! His vanity's hurt. Don't underestimate him!" ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... your duty to yourself," I managed to say. "Yes, yes, one owes a great duty to oneself and one's work, John. You are risking too much—name, friends, honor, work, freedom. For God's sake, John, do not underestimate the danger. You have not had time ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... Let us not underestimate this fact: that we ourselves, we free spirits, are already a "transvaluation of all values," a visualized declaration of war and victory against all the old concepts of "true" and "not true." The most valuable intuitions are the last to be attained; the most valuable of all are those ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche

... appreciation of him as their most trusted and loyal public servant, while as a matter of fact it was ludicrously obvious that his presence was quite as objectionable to them in England as it was to the exiles in St. Helena. He was fully alive to, and did not underestimate, the amount of dirty work he had done for them, and very properly expected to be amply rewarded. It never occurred to him that retribution was over-shadowing them as well as himself, and that they could not openly avow ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... event, were completely answered; of inexplicable conduct which was fully explained; of fixed and unalterable determinations that, by discussion, suffered a change. Nor are those with any knowledge of human nature who pause to think for a moment likely to underestimate the feelings of resentment of those who find that a decision against them has been made without their being afforded any opportunity to influence ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan

... have been inclined to underestimate the importance of Pepys' diary. Francis Jeffrey, who wrote long ago about Pepys, evidently thought that he was an idle and unprofitable fellow and that the diary was too much given to mean and petty things. But in reality the diary is an historical mine. Even when ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... mistake for the student of seventeenth-century thought to underestimate the tenacity of scholastic Aristotelianism. Descartes, we all know, was reared in it, but then Descartes overthrew it; and he had done his work and died by the time that Leibniz was of an age to philosophize at all. ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz



Words linked to "Underestimate" :   guess, judge, value, misjudge, estimate, sell short, overestimate, approximate, overvalue, idea, estimation, approximation, gauge



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