0 to give support, strength, or a basic structure to something:
1 to give support to something or provide the starting point from which something can develop:
Falling unemployment was likely to underpin consumer confidence.
These new products are part of a line-up that will underpin the company's recovery.
In both of these studies maximising choice and control over one's life emerged as key themes which underpinned these more specific outcomes.
Not only is much of its aid tied, it also helps to underpin the political economies of narrow state elites.
This claim is supported by the fact that most of the existing multi-agent languages are not yet fully underpinned by a clear semantic description.
It is more an exposition of principles that underpin curriculum design, together with examples of how these might work in practice.
The goals or policies of agencies underpin the resource exchanges set out in agency framework documents.
In fact, the decentralisation project threatened the clientelist politicians who depended on health care patronage to sustain the political networks that underpinned their electoral machines.
The commitment to continuing to play was underpinned by an awareness of the long-term nature of the p roject they had undertaken.
Different notions of social participation appear to underpin the situation in each country.
