| 词汇 | underworld |
| 词源 | underworld. Since about 1608, when the term is first record- ed, underworld had meant hell, or the nether world of the dead beneath the earth. But in the 18th century the word was ap- plied to the world of criminals, who were considered “beneath” proper society. By the 1920s underworld was being used in this second sense only to describe organized crime, which the word generally means today. |
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