underaction

From under- +‎ action.

• IPA^(key): /ˌʌndəɹˈækʃən/

• Audio (Southern England):

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underaction (countable and uncountable, plural underactions)

1. (obsolete) subplot; a minor event incidental or subsidiary to the main story.
   • 1697, Virgil, “Dedication to Virgil's Aeneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page [151]:

     The least and most trivial episodes or underactions […] are parts necessary or convenient to carry on the main design.

2. Inefficient action.

• “underaction”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• denunciator