underway

Alternative forms

• under way
• under weigh
• underweigh

Etymology

Calque of Dutch onderweg (“underway”), equivalent to under- +‎ way.

Noun

underway (plural underways)

1. A road, track, path, or street for going under another way or obstacle.
   • 2005, Donovan L. Hofsommer, “Adrift”, in Minneapolis and the Age of Railways‎, Univ. of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, page 152:

     As Minneapolis grew, the city demanded that M&StL construct "underways" beneath city roadways.

2. An underground passage, tunnel.
   • 2004, Alan Goldfein, “A Wonderful Drive”, in Europe's Macadam, America's Tar: How America Really Compares to "Old Europe"‎, American Editions, →ISBN, page 46:

     There are in fact many such subterranean underways in Germany, speeding traffic beneath bergs, burgs and villages and into and around and under big city downtowns ...

3. A voyage, especially underwater.
   • 2008, Alfred Scott McLaren, William R. Anderson, “To Severnaya Zemlya and the Beginning of the Shelf Survey”, in Unknown Waters: A First-Hand Account of the Historic Under-ice Survey of the Siberian Continental Shelf by USS Queenfish (SSN-651)‎, Univ. of Alabama Press, →ISBN, page 179:

     I had been the diving officer on three previous submarines, …, and was an experienced officer of the deck with many underways and landings under my belt on all three.

4. (computer science) subroutine
   • 2003, “Chapter 5 Are Scripting Languages Any Good?”, in Marvin Zelkowitz, editor, Advances in Computers: Information Repositories, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 226:

     However, the class of programs represented by the phonecode task is rather large and common, especially in an area for which script languages are often used, namely transcribing text files from one format into another, perhaps including some semantic processing underways.

Adverb

underway (comparative more underway, superlative most underway)

1. In motion, in progress; being done or carried out; on a journey.
   • 2008 February 14, Lohr, Steve, “Offshore Outsourcing’s Next Wave: How High?”, in NY Times‎, retrieved 2012-01-22:

     The next wave, well underway, is shipping back-office business tasks overseas, ...