under way
6
3.0
- idiom
- /ˈʌndər weɪ/
:
en marcha
- Evacuations are under way in the Fond du Lac neighborhood of Duluth and Thomson Township in Carlton County.
- already under way
He needs a shake up is the bottom line and one is under way.
- He needs a shake up is the bottom line and one is under way.
- I believe that the talks with Amazon were under way, but I'm pretty sure that no deal had been sealed.
- And so there's a lot of effort under way to kind of keep observing these exploding stars known as supernova.
Examples
-
In the tiny new nation of Eritrea, East Africa, an experiment in government is under way.
Academic text (1996) -
Championship match is under way.
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While the system is under way, it's never still.
-
And we're well under way this quarter.
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We're going to be under way in just a minute.
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Phase two is under way.
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Authorities are refusing to comment other than to say that the investigation is already well under way.
-
There's a revolution under way in Greece.
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The environmental review process is already under way and should be completed by 2005, according to the Water Authority's Yamada.
Academic text (2004) -
The investigation is well under way after several months of planning.
Synonyms
401
3.5
Still happening and not finished
336
4.1
Happening right now
171
3.4
Moving forward as planned to reach a goal
29
7.2
Happening now or being planned for the near future
Moving forward or making progress slowly and steadily
Antonyms
How Complete
Surface Forms
Morphology
There is a partial relationship to the constituents: 'way' can evoke movement or progress and 'under' can mark a state, so a learner might infer something like 'in motion' or 'in a state of progress'. However, the combination is idiomatic (historically fossilized) and the use of 'under' in this sense is not a regular compositional pattern learners reliably generalize, and many languages use different idioms for 'in progress', so the meaning is not fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
Under way may come from old sailors who, when a ship lifted its anchor and began moving, said it was under way. So today under way means 'started' or 'in progress'.