Frequent soil erosion can undermine the foundations of ancient structures, threatening their stability over centuries.
频繁的土壤侵蚀会削弱古代建筑的地基，威胁其数百年的稳定性。
Novelist Ravi Chandrasekhar argues that an ending's inevitability, once achieved, actually undermines its capacity to surprise, since readers who sense a story's direction too clearly will anticipate its conclusion well before reaching it.
From a Cross-Text Connections question · Craft and Structure
Novelist Julian Ferreira argues that giving villains fully understandable motivations can sometimes soften readers' judgment of genuinely harmful actions in ways that undermine a story's moral clarity.
From a Cross-Text Connections question · Craft and Structure
Which choice best defines “undermine”?
A — To weaken or damage something. “undermine” means to weaken or damage something.
Which word means “to weaken or damage something”?
A — undermine. “undermine” means to weaken or damage something.
undermine — to weaken or damage something. In Chinese: 削弱，破坏.
undermine is pronounced /ˌʌndərˈmaɪn/.
Frequent soil erosion can undermine the foundations of ancient structures, threatening their stability over centuries. (频繁的土壤侵蚀会削弱古代建筑的地基，威胁其数百年的稳定性。)
weaken, sabotage, erode — all close in meaning to undermine (to weaken or damage something).
strengthen, bolster — each the opposite of undermine (to weaken or damage something).
Yes. undermine is on the SAT Prep Easy list — mid-frequency academic words that do get tested. The Digital SAT does not test vocabulary in isolation; words like this one are tested through Words in Context questions, where you choose the word that completes a passage most logically and precisely.