Definitions

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

  • adjective Being in a position or in circumstances that place one under the power or authority of another or others.
  • adjective Prone; disposed.
  • adjective Likely to incur or receive; exposed.
  • adjective Contingent or dependent.
  • noun One who is under the rule of another or others, especially one who owes allegiance to a government or ruler.
  • noun One concerning which something is said or done; a person or thing being discussed or dealt with.
  • noun Something that is treated or indicated in a work of art.
  • noun Music A theme of a composition, especially a fugue.
  • noun A course or area of study.
  • noun A basis for action; a cause.
  • noun One that experiences or is subjected to something.
  • noun A person or animal that is the object of medical or scientific study.
  • noun A corpse intended for anatomical study and dissection.
  • noun One who is under surveillance.
  • noun Grammar The noun, noun phrase, or pronoun in a sentence or clause that denotes the doer of the action or what is described by the predicate.
  • noun Logic The term of a proposition about which something is affirmed or denied.
  • noun The essential nature or substance of something as distinguished from its attributes.
  • noun The mind or thinking part as distinguished from the object of thought.
  • transitive verb To cause to experience, undergo, or be acted upon.
  • transitive verb To subjugate; subdue.
  • transitive verb To submit to the authority of.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Placed or situated under or beneath.
  • Being under the power or dominion of another.
  • Exposed; liable, from extraneous or inherent causes; prone: with to: as, a country subject to extreme heat or cold; a person subject to attacks of fever.
  • Hence Exposed or liable, as to what may confirm or modify: with to: as, subject to your approval; subject to correction.
  • Submissive; obedient.
  • Synonyms Subordinate, subservient, inferior.
  • Apt, Likely, etc. See apt.
  • noun One who is placed under the authority, dominion, or controlling influence of another; specifically, one who owes allegiance to a sovereign and is governed by his laws; one who lives under the protection of, and owes allegiance to, a government.
  • noun A person or thing regarded as the recipient of certain treatment; one who or that which is exposed or liable to something specified.
  • noun Specifically— A dead body used for dissection.
  • noun One who is peculiarly sensitive to psychological experimentation; a sensitive.
  • noun One who or that which is the cause or occasion of something.
  • noun That on which any mental operation is performed; that which is thought, spoken, or treated of: as, a subject of discussion or negotiation; a subject for a sermon or a song; the subject of a story.
  • noun In grammar, that of which anything is affirmed; the nominative of a verb, without or with modifiers; the member or part of a sentence signifying that of which predication is made.
  • noun In logic, that term of a proposition of which the other is affirmed or denied.
  • noun In metaphysics: A real thing to which given characters relate and in which they are said to inhere.
  • noun In Kantian and modern philosophy, the self or ego to which in all thought all mental representations are attributed (according to Kant); also, a real (hypothetical) thing in which mental phenomena are supposed to inhere.
  • noun In music: In general, the theme or melodic phrase on which a work or movement is based, consisting of few or many tones variously combined and treated; a motive. When two or more principal subjects are used, they are often known as first, second, etc.
  • noun In contrapuntal works, the theme given out at the beginning, to which (in fugue and canon) the answer responds, and with which the counter-subject is combined which is taken as the basis for thematic development, for imitation, etc.
  • noun In the fine arts, the plan or general view chosen by an artist; the design of a composition or picture; the scheme or idea of a work of art: as, a historical subject; a genre subject; a marine subject; a pastoral subject.
  • noun In decorative art, a pictorial representation of human figures or animals; a picture representing action and incident.
  • noun Synonyms Subject, Theme, Topic, Point, Thesis. The first three of these words are often popularly used as exactly synonymous. Daniel Webster puts within a few lines of each other the two following sentences: [If an American Thucydides should arise,] “may his theme not be a Peloponnesian war,” and [American history] “will furnish no topic for a Gibbon.” Yet, strictly in rhetoric, and more often in general use, subject is the broad word for anything written or spoken about, while theme is the word for the exact and generally narrower statement of the subject. A topic is a still narrower subject; there may be several interesting topics suggested under a single subject. A point is by its primary meaning the smallest possible subdivision under a subject. Thesis is a technical word for a subject which takes the form of an exact proposition or assertion which is to be proved: as, Luther fastened his ninety-five theses to the church-door. The paper in which the proof of a thesis is attempted is also called a thesis. A student's composition is often called a theme. The meaning of the other words is not extended to the written or spoken discourse. See proposition.
  • noun In geometry, the figure cut by the picture-plane.
  • noun In experimental psychology: The observer or reactor; the person upon whom an experiment is made.
  • noun More correctly, the person, normal or abnormal in mental condition, who is subjected to a mental test or an examination of mental efficiency.
  • To put, lay, or spread under; make subjacent.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin subiectus, from past participle of sūbicere, to subject : sub-, sub- + iacere, to throw; see yē- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English subget, from Old French suget, from Latin subiectus ("lying under or near, adjacent, also subject, exposed"), as a noun, subiectus ("a subject, an inferior"), subiectum ("the subject of a proposition"), past participle of subiciō ("throw, lay, place"), from sub ("under, at the foot of") + iaciō ("throw, hurl").

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Examples

  • -- _Write five interrogative sentences, using the first word below as a subject; the second as a subject and then as a modifier of the subject; the third as a subject and then as a modifier of the subject_: --

    Higher Lessons in English A work on english grammar and composition Brainerd Kellogg

  • Knowing the anxiety that will be felt on this subject, though we doubt if the future King can be called _a subject_ at all, we have collected the following exclusive particulars: --

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, November 20, 1841 Various

  • Mr. Garnett having inquired what subject Butler and Jones would take up when they had finished “Narcissus, ” Butler said that they “might write an oratorio on some sacred subject”; and when Garnett asked whether they had anything in particular in mind, he replied that they were thinking of “The Woman Taken in Adultery.

    Samuel Butler: Diogenes of the Victorians 1921

  • Note that this changes the return value in an array where every element is an array consisting of the matched string at index 0 and its string offset into $subject at index 1. offset: Normally, the search starts from the beginning of the subject string.

    Muti 2009

  • If matches are found, the new subject will be returned, otherwise $subject will be returned unchanged. pattern: The pattern to search for, as a string or an array with strings. callback: A callback that will be called and passed an array of matched elements in the $subject string.

    Muti 2009

  • $_POST [ "from"]; $subject = $_POST [ "subject"]; $message = $_POST [ "message"]; To specify from whom the e-mail is coming, use the optional fourth parameter for the mail () function, headers.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows Bravo77 2009

  • Loop, Repeater run, mailto: \% Who\%? subject = \% subject\%&body = \% Message\% winwaitactive, \% subject\%

    AutoHotkey Community 2008

  • Message = \% Text\% run, mailto: \% Who\%? subject = \% subject\%&body = \% Message\% winwaitactive, \% subject\%

    AutoHotkey Community 2008

  • His words are, "to _yield obedience to_ the commands of a King, if against the true religion, against the ancient and fundamental laws of the land, is another sign of an ill subject:" -- "To _resist_ the lawful power of the King; to raise insurrection against the King; admit him adverse in his religion; _to conspire against his sacred person, or any ways to rebel, though commanding things against our consciences in exercising religion, or against the rights and privileges of the subject_, is an absolute sign of the disaffected and traitorous subject."

    Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1803

  • (string) $this - > input - > post ( 'email', TRUE); $subject = (string) $this - > input - > post ( 'subject', TRUE);

    Pixel2Life.com: Latest 15 Tutorials 2009

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