underfang

• underfong

From Middle English underfangen, underfongen, undervongen, from Old English underfōn (“to receive, obtain, take, accept, take in, entertain, take up, undertake, assume, adopt, submit to, undergo, steal”), from Proto-Germanic *under + *fanhaną (“to take, receive”), equivalent to under- +‎ fang. Cognate with Dutch ondervangen (“to overcome, forestall”), German unterfangen (“to venture, dare”).

underfang (third-person singular simple present underfangs, present participle underfanging, simple past and past participle underfanged)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To undertake.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To accept; receive.
3. (transitive, obsolete) To insnare; entrap; deceive by false suggestions.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     For that he is so puissant and so strong, / That with his powre he all doth overgo, / And makes them subject to his mighty wrong; / And some by sleight he eke doth underfong.

4. (transitive, obsolete) To support or guard from beneath.