The ubiquitous preposition and prefix υπο (hupo) generally means under, beneath or through. It creates a (downward) motion either from something, toward something or through (because of / under cover of) something. As such it's often translatable as 'by'.

Our particle mostly generates a genitive form of the word it points toward, but also comes with an accusative. As stand-alone word it occurs 229 times in the New Testament; see full concordance. As prefix our word occurs in an additional colossal array of composite words.