nether

Etymology 1

From Middle English nether, nethere, nithere, from Old English niþera (“lower, under, lowest”, adjective), from niþer, niþor (“below, beneath, down, downwards, lower, in an inferior position”, adverb), from Proto-West Germanic [Term?], from Proto-Germanic *niþer, *niþra (“down”), from Proto-Indo-European *ni-, *nei- (“in, down”). Cognates include Dutch neder, German nieder, Luxembourgish nidder, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish ned, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish nedre (“lower”), Faroese and Icelandic niður.

adj

1. Lower; under.
   The disappointed child’s nether lip quivered.
2. Lying beneath, or conceived as lying beneath, the Earth’s surface.
   the nether regions
   When one thinks of the tremendous forces of the upper and the nether world which play for the mastery of the soul of a woman during the few years in which she passes from plastic girlhood to the ripe maturity of womanhood, 1873, Mark Twain, The Gilded Age, page 187

adv

1. Down; downward.
2. Low; low down.

Etymology 2

Alteration of earlier nither, from Middle English nitheren, from Old English niþerian (“to depress, abase, bring low, humiliate, oppress, accuse, condemn”), from niþer (“below, beneath, down, downwards, lower, in an inferior position”). See above.

verb

1. (transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To bring or thrust down; bring or make low; lower; abase; humble.
2. (transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To constrict; straiten; confine; restrict; suppress; lay low; keep under; press in upon; vex; harass; oppress.
3. (transitive, UK dialectal, Scotland) To pinch or stunt with cold or hunger; check in growth; shrivel; straiten.
4. (transitive, UK dialectal, Scotland) To shrink or huddle, as with cold; be shivery; tremble.
5. (transitive, UK dialectal, Scotland) To depreciate; disparage; undervalue.

noun

1. (UK dialectal, Scotland) Oppression; stress; a withering or stunting influence.
2. (mining) A trouble; a fault or dislocation in a seam of coal.