Meaning & use
undergo
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To go through a treatment, test or procedure, usually a serious or planned one, that is done to you.
Grammar: Always takes an object: undergo surgery.
Patterns
- undergo something
She will undergo surgery on her knee next week.
All new recruits undergo a medical examination.
The building underwent safety checks before it reopened.
verbtransitive
To experience a change, hardship or difficult event.
Grammar: Takes an object such as a change or ordeal: undergo a transformation.
Patterns
- undergo a change
The city has undergone enormous change in the past decade.
The refugees underwent terrible hardships on the journey.
The company is undergoing a complete restructure.
Word forms
| third person singular | undergoes |
|---|---|
| past tense | underwent |
| past participle | undergone |
| -ing form | undergoing |
Common combinations
- undergo surgery
- He had to undergo surgery after the fall.
- undergo training
- Pilots undergo months of training.
- undergo a transformation
- The old mill underwent a transformation into apartments.
- undergo tests
- The patient will undergo tests tomorrow.
- undergo repairs
- The bridge is undergoing repairs.
- undergo a change
- Her attitude underwent a big change.
Synonyms and how they differ
- experience
- Experience is the broad everyday word and can be pleasant, while undergo suggests something harder or more formal done to you.
- endure
- Endure stresses suffering through something painful over time, whereas undergo is neutral about how it felt.
- go through
- Go through is the informal equivalent and works for both procedures and personal hardships.
- suffer
- Suffer focuses on pain or damage, while undergo may describe a planned and useful process.
Opposites
Word family
- undergone verb
- past participle of undergo
- underwent verb
- past tense of undergo
- undergoing verb
- present participle of undergo
- undergraduate noun
- a student at the stage before a first degree (unrelated in meaning, shares the prefix under-)
Commonly confused: undergo or undertake?
undergo vs undertake
Undertake means to agree to do something yourself, whereas undergo means to have something done to you or to pass through it.
Practice
Before joining the fire service, every candidate must ___ a fitness test.
Choose one answer.
Undergo fits a test that candidates are put through. Undertake would be about promising to do a task, which is less natural for a test imposed on you.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “undergo”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.