To undervalue something means to judge it as less important, useful, or valuable than it truly is. When you undervalue a friend's help, you might forget to thank them or treat their effort as no big deal when they actually did something meaningful for you. When a coach undervalues a player's skills, they might leave that player on the bench instead of recognizing what the player could contribute to the team.

People often undervalue things they take for granted. You might undervalue your own abilities because you're so used to them that they seem ordinary, even though others struggle with the same tasks. A musician might undervalue years of practice because the skill now feels natural, forgetting how much work went into developing it.

The opposite is overvalue, which means thinking something is more important than it really is. Finding the right balance matters: undervaluing yourself can lead to missed opportunities, while undervaluing others can damage relationships and make you seem ungrateful or dismissive. In business, undervaluing a product means pricing it too low, which can make people doubt its quality or cause you to lose money you deserved to earn.