Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A substitute.
  • intransitive verb To act as a substitute.
  • intransitive verb To put or use (a person or thing) as a substitute.
  • noun Nautical A submarine.
  • noun A submarine sandwich.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A prefix of Latin origin, meaning ‘under, below, beneath,’ or ‘from under.’
  • noun A substitute; specifically, one who is willing to serve as a substitute for a regular compositor on a newspaper.
  • To act as a substitute; specifically, to act as the substitute of another in a composing-room.
  • To subirrigate. See subbing, 2.
  • An abbreviation of subject
  • of substitute
  • of suburb
  • of suburban.
  • noun A subaltern; a subordinate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun colloq. A subordinate; a subaltern.
  • noun a shortened form of submarine, the boat.
  • noun a shortened form of submarine sandwich; also called hero, hero sandwich, and grinder.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • preposition Under.
  • verb To coat with a layer of adhering material; to planarize by means of such a coating.
  • verb microscopy To prepare (a slide) with an layer of transparent substance to support and/or fix the sample.
  • noun A submarine.
  • noun A submarine sandwich—a sandwich made on a long bun.
  • noun US, informal A substitute.
  • noun UK, informal A substitute in a football (soccer) game: someone who comes on in place of another player part way through the game.
  • noun UK, informal, often in plural Short for subscription: a payment made for membership of a club, etc.
  • noun informal A submissive in BDSM practices.
  • noun Internet, informal Short for subtitle.
  • noun computing, programming A subroutine (sometimes one that does not return a value, as distinguished from a function, which does).
  • noun colloquial, dated A subordinate.
  • noun colloquial, dated A subaltern.
  • verb US, informal To substitute for.
  • verb US, informal To work as a substitute teacher, especially in primary and secondary education.
  • verb UK, informal (soccer) To replace (a player) with a substitute.
  • verb UK, informal (soccer) Less commonly, and often as sub on, to bring on (a player) as a substitute.
  • verb UK To perform the work of a subeditor or copy editor; to subedit.
  • verb UK, slang, transitive To lend.
  • verb slang, intransitive To subscribe.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb be a substitute
  • noun a submersible warship usually armed with torpedoes
  • noun a large sandwich made of a long crusty roll split lengthwise and filled with meats and cheese (and tomato and onion and lettuce and condiments); different names are used in different sections of the United States

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin sub.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Shortened form of any of various words beginning sub-, such as submarine, subroutine, substitute, subscription.

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Examples

  • The term sub-irrigated refers to the high water table that keeps the soil moist much of the year.

    Ecoregions of Wyoming (EPA) 2009

  • We all knew that not all political Gurus are well-versed in economics and the term sub-prime was quite foreign to them.

    An Era of Openness. 2009

  • It is real UMPC, although some computer magazine still us the term sub notebooks like the Sony Vaio.

    Archive 2008-06-01 Jak Boumans 2008

  • It is real UMPC, although some computer magazine still us the term sub notebooks like the Sony Vaio.

    Archive 2008-05-12 Jak Boumans 2008

  • It is real UMPC, although some computer magazine still us the term sub notebooks like the Sony Vaio.

    Archive 2008-05-24 Jak Boumans 2008

  • Sub-primes generally are for those individuals who have poor credit, hence the term sub-prime.

    "Boehner calls bill a 'crap sandwich'..." Ann Althouse 2008

  • The main forerunner in using the term sub-imperialism about Brazil is the Brazilian economist Ruy Mauro Marini, [13] one of the fathers of the school of dependence.

    CounterPunch 2010

  • The DVM that exposes the super latches use the term sub-latch, sys. dm_os_sublatches.

    MSDN Blogs 2009

  • The DVM that exposes the super latches use the term sub-latch, sys. dm_os_sublatches.

    MSDN Blogs 2009

  • The term sub prime i guess can be given to the other loans the MMs give out.

    reddit.com: what's new online! 2008

Comments

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  • Bus in reverse.

    November 3, 2007

  • A medium-sized sublet.

    July 6, 2008

  • In tiddlywinks, "to shoot a wink that ends up coming to rest under another wink, squopped."

    August 27, 2008