Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or relating to regions at or near the foot of the Alps.
- adj. Of, relating to, inhabiting, or growing in mountainous regions just below the timberline.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Living or growing on mountains at an elevation next below the height called alpine.
- Lower Alpine: applied to that part or zone of the Alps which lies between the so-called “highland” zone and the “Alpine” zone proper. It extends between the elevations of 4,000 and 5,500 feet approximately, and is especially characterized by the presence of coniferous trees, chiefly firs, which cover a large part of its surface. Large timber-trees rarely reach much above its upper border. Below the subalpine zone is the highland or mountain zone, the region of deciduous trees, and above it the Alpine, which, as this term is generally used, embraces the region extending between the upper limit of trees and the first appearance of permanent snow. Still higher up is the glacial region, comprehending all that part of the Alps which rises above the limit of perpetual snow. The terms alpine and subalpine are sometimes applied to other mountain-chains than the Alps, with signification more or less vaguely accordant with their application to that chain.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Bot. & Zoöl.) Inhabiting the somewhat high slopes and summits of mountains, but considerably below the snow line.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. growing at high altitudes
Examples
“Larix lyallii, or alpine larch (sometimes called subalpine larch).”
“It is dominated by tree species that thrive in cool, humid climates with heavy snow cover, such as subalpine fir and Engelmann spruce.”
“Spruce bark beetles were after the spruce trees and fir engraver beetles were killing subalpine fir trees.”
“Winter snowfall accumulates as a snowpack and the high elevation Engelmann spruce, subalpine fir and limber pine forests provide an essential cover so that the snow melts slowly in the springtime and feeds the headwaters of the mighty Colorado River which drains one tenth of the land base in the lower 48 states.”
The Huffington Post: Dr. Reese Halter: Global Warming, Drought and the Grim Reaper
“Above the tree line at about 2,600 m, the vegetation is subalpine.”
“Maybe it's because we're at 9,600 feet in the Colorado Rockies that we can think with cool heads about the heat that has been boiling East Coast bodies and minds recently -- and the fact that we study the effects of global warming on subalpine ecosystems up here, summer, after summer, after summer.”
“He remembers paddling out to the middle of the lake, on one side Many's giant cabin, a thousand times his and Jules 'cabin, and on the other side a sheer wonderland of western larch and subalpine fir, snowy peaks slicing the blue sky like ice.”
“Those mature subalpine forests help retain snowfall in the winter and slowly release melt-waters in the springtime that recharge reservoirs.”
The Huffington Post: Dr. Reese Halter: At Christmas and Beyond: Trees Keep on Giving
“Populations of Rocky Mountain locust spread across Alberta, Montana and Wyoming of say 10 million; each required about 2,400 acres of either river bottoms, sunny uplands or subalpine grassy areas providing a permanent breeding ground, thus enabling swarms to eventually attain trillions of insects.”
The Huffington Post: Dr. Reese Halter: Australian Locust Thrive, Rocky Mountain Ones Disappear
“Between about 8,000 and 11,000 feet elevation, subalpine forests, Douglas-fir forests, and aspen parkland are widespread with ponderosa pine and limber pine also occurring on the high volcanic plateaus.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘subalpine’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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sub- (suc-, suf-, etc.)
lower; somewhat; secondary; supporting
subalpine, subordinate, subconscious, subvention, sublet, subsistence, subsidize, sub, subacetate, subacid, subacidity, subacidness and 114 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Landscape
riparian, littoral, talus, fen, ambit, savanna, remnant prairie, shortgrass prairie, tallgrass prairie, marsh, swamp, marshy and 199 more...
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Bird Wirds: Adjectives
Adjectives used in actual (non-taxonomic) bird names, past and present.
roseate, glossy, whooping, neotropic, pelagic, ferruginous, crested, whiskered, marbled, tufted, horned, eared and 818 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for subalpine.
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