Undergo
Patients, trainees, and entire sectors share this verb for the stretch nobody enjoys: passing through a process that changes you on the way out.
Learn This WordMeaning
To experience a process or change.
Memory trick
UNDER-GO: you go under the process the way a car goes under a wash.
Examples
The sector underwent rapid change.
The old market underwent renovation and reopened with twice the stalls.
Every recruit undergoes a six-week field posting before confirmation.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
From Old English undergan "to go under, submit to." You pass under the weight of the process and come out changed.
Usage Notes
Use for institutional or personal transformation under pressure: sectors, patients, trainees undergo things; agents merely do them.
Real-life contexts
Use formally: "The policy underwent three revisions."
Use in health: "She is undergoing physio for the knee."
Use in careers: "Interns undergo a month of shadowing."
Common Mistakes
Undergo takes the process as object (undergo surgery, undergo training), never a person. Do not confuse with undertake (to begin a task yourself).
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Part of Speech
verb
Difficulty
intermediateMonthly Searches
~45,000
Related Words
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To make a process easier or more likely to happen; to help bring about.
Catalyst
Something that causes or speeds up change or action; in chemistry, a substance that increases reaction rate without being consumed.
Perpetuate
To make something continue indefinitely; to preserve a harmful situation or idea.