underdevelopment
noun
underdevelopment is a noun meaning “The condition of being underdeveloped” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled U-N-D-E-R-D-E-V-E-L-O-P-M-E-N-T and has 6 syllables, and it appears about once in every 6 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of underdevelopment is underdevelopments.
What does underdevelopment mean?
noun
- 1
The condition of being underdeveloped.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce underdevelopment?
- US
Underdevelopment has 6 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-underdevelopment.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of underdevelopment
- underdevelopments plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is underdevelopment?
Underdevelopment appears about once in every 6 million words in written English, the 72,332nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Underdevelopment in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Translations:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | sous-développement |
| German | Unterentwicklung, Rückständigkeit |
| Portuguese | subdesenvolvimento |
| Spanish | subdesarrollo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does underdevelopment come from?
From under- + development.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).