Word of the Day Archive
Friday July 16, 2010
undercast \UHN-der-kast\
, noun:
1. Something viewed from above through another medium, as of clouds viewed from an airplane.
2. Mining. A crossing of two passages, as airways, dug at the same level so that one descends to pass beneath the other without any opening into it.
His skin was white, but the sweater brought out the undercast of pale, pale green so that his skin was either pearl white or a dreamlike green depending on how the light hit it.
-- Laurel K. Hamilton, A Kiss of Shadows
Crewmen later reported having seen explosions and fires through breaks in the undercast, but their fleeting observations were none too precise and the strike photos were too poor to be of much use.
-- Wesley Frank Craven, James Lea Cate, The Army Air Forces in World War II
Undercast derives from meteorology and aeronautics jargon.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for undercast