above ground

above +‎ ground

• (US) IPA^(key): /əˈbʌvˌɡɹaʊnd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

above ground

1. On or above the surface of the ground.
   • 1861, Charles Reade, chapter 60, in The Cloister and the Hearth:

     "This place Rome? It is but the tomb of mighty Rome." He showed Gerard . . . the gigantic vestiges of antiquity that peeped aboveground here and there.

   • 2012 March-April, Anna Lena Phillips, “Sneaky Silk Moths”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 2, page 172:

     Last spring, the periodical cicadas emerged across eastern North America. Their vast numbers and short above-ground life spans inspired awe and irritation in humans—and made for good meals for birds and small mammals.

2. (figurative) Not dead and buried; alive.
   • 1992, David Webb Peoples, Unforgiven, screenplay:

     Alice: I told you, he don't have no wife, not aboveground, anyhow.

3. Not of or relating to the social or political underground; in the open; existing within or produced by the establishment.
   • 2003, Henry Jenkins III, Tara McPherson, Jane Shattuc, Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, page 228:

     More disturbing was that zines and underground culture didn't seem to be any sort of threat to this aboveground world.

   • 2006 March, “Watching What You Eat”, in Indianapolis Monthly, page 82:

     And they argue that if aboveground activists continue to express public sympathy for their underground counterparts […]

   • 2014, Stephen Duncombe, Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture:

     But there is yet another interlocutor that precedes the underground culture of zines: the aboveground world of straight society.

• (on or above the surface of the ground): superterranean
• (not dead and buried): kicking; see also Thesaurus:alive
• (existing within or produced by the establishment): mainstream, official

• (antonym(s) of “on or above the surface of the ground”): belowground, underground; see also Thesaurus:subterranean
• (antonym(s) of “existing within or produced by the establishment”): underground