Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use subtract in a sentence

26 example sentences · verb

Subtract means to remove or reduce; especially to reduce a quantity or number. Example: “If you subtract the $100 for gas from the total cost, it was a fairly inexpensive trip.”

Examples of subtract by meaning

verbTo remove or reduce; especially to reduce a quantity or number.

  • If you subtract the $100 for gas from the total cost, it was a fairly inexpensive trip.
  • In a similar way, a² – b², a squared number subtracted from another squared number, called a difference of squares, becomes (a – b)(a + b), which becomes a² + ab – ab – b², which is a² – b².2022 August 7, Alec Wilkinson, “Could learning algebra in my 60s make me smarter?”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 22 Mar...

More sentences with subtract

  • The raw signal data was subjected to a baseline correction process to subtract the sensor's offset and drift variations.From the entry offset
  • It wasn't until they tried to subtract 3 from 1 that the elementary school students realized they needed signed numbers.From the entry signed
  • A company’s score is calculated by subtracting negative feedback from positive feedback.2021, Nir Kshetri, Cybersecurity Management: An Organizational and Strategic Approach, University of Toronto Press, page 173. From the entry buzz score
  • Subtracting the liters of concentrate fluid required in the diluted operation.2011, v. 80/1, Optimizing Use of Aircraft Deicing & Anti-icing Fluids (ACRP). From the entry concentrate
  • Take the invoice and subtract the holdback to find the starting price of the car.2008, Brian Munroe, Car Buying Revealed. From the entry holdback
  • By adding and subtracting the three primaries, cyan, yellow, and magenta are produced.2003, Julie A Jacko, Andrew Sears, The human-computer interaction handbook. From the entry primary
  • The measureless squalor, the calm, house-broken, dog-hearted, subjected, abjected, subtracted, contracted, signed sealed and delivered.1954, Louis Grudin, Inky Darkling, page 176. From the entry dog-hearted
  • I could add and subtract and multiply and divide, but I entered the wilderness when words became equations.2022 August 7, Alec Wilkinson, “Could learning algebra in my 60s make me smarter?”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 22 Mar…. From the entry add
  • Subtract more heat, and a solid forms.2017, Sam Kean, Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us. From the entry dew
  • Children accomplish learning how to count, and then almost immediately they have to learn how to 'uncount', that is, subtract.2017, Eugenia Cheng, Beyond Infinity. From the entry uncount
  • Next, this change was subtracted from the total per capita expenditure to obtain the preborrowing measure of total per capita expenditure.2016, Shahidur R. Khandker, M.A. Baqui Khalily, Hussain A. Samad, Beyond Ending Poverty. From the entry preborrowing
  • Somewhat confusingly, the bonification – or bonus – is subtracted from the rider's time, not added to it.2015, Suze Clemitson, P Is For Peloton: The A-Z Of Cycling, page 18. From the entry bonification
  • Subtracting these unavoidable losses, we obtain the regret table, Table 1.7, and the average regret table, Table 1.8.2012, Herman Chernoff, Lincoln E. Moses, Elementary Decision Theory, page 12. From the entry regret
  • Subtract this number from UTC time and you have zonetime.2011, Lawrence Rick, Life is a Cruise: The Log of Done Dreamin', page 83. From the entry zonetime
  • How could so much warmth and unassuming gentleness be subtracted from the world by the simple misbeat of an organ?2011, Susan Donovan, Celeste Bradley, A Courtesan's Guide to Getting Your Man. From the entry misbeat
  • If those digits were 87, subtract 50, leaving 37.2009, Larry Rittenberg, Karla Johnstone, Audrey Gramling, Auditing: A Business Risk Approach, Cengage Learning, page 362. From the entry random number
  • When an outstanding expense is paid, the payment amount is subtracted from a cash account and removed from the accounts payable.2008, Barbara Findlay Schenck, John Davies, Selling Your Business For Dummies, page 99. From the entry account payable
  • Subtract the second figure from the first and you’ve got your young’un’s weight, give or take a diaperful.1997, Annie Smith, Glen-Bob Smith, “Weighing Kids on Stone Scales”, in The Redneck Guide To Raisin’ Children, →ISBN. From the entry diaperful
  • You can forget about adding and subtracting angles once you've set the declination and double-checked that you set it in the right direction.2012, Glenn Randall, Outward Bound Map & Compass Handbook Revised, page 52. From the entry set-and-forget
  • In Sessions 8 and 9, the same little friends were used, but, in this case, when there are not enough pieces in the row to be subtracted.2021 February 21, Samuel P. León, María del Carmen Carcelén Fraile, Inmaculada García-Martínez, “Development of Cognitive Abilities…. From the entry little friend
  • We detect wrinkles, discolourations and pores, and subtract them from a woman’s beauty in ways we don’t if that same face is presented to us as masculine.2018 March 6, Lili Loofbourow, “The male glance: how we fail to take women’s stories seriously”, in The Guardian. From the entry discolouration
  • Among the extraordinary features of the process of plasmatic modification, those are especially worthy of note that pertain to homogeneous terms of affection from which powers are subtracted.2006, François Viète, T. Richard Witmer, The Analytic Art, page 181. From the entry plasmatic
  • What could be more selfish, more miserly—this in specific is what gnaws at him—than dying childless, terminating the line, subtracting oneself from the great work of generation?2005, J. M. Coetzee, “Three”, in Slow Man, New York: Viking, →ISBN, page 20. From the entry miserly
  • This can be done by subtracting one-half the depth of focus from the stimulus to accommodation when the subject over-accommodated and by adding one-half the depth when he under-accommodated.1942, Ohio State University, Abstracts of Doctors' Dissertations - Volume 40, page 143. From the entry over-accommodate

Meaning of subtract

  1. verb To remove or reduce; especially to reduce a quantity or number.

Full definition of subtract

Questions about subtract in a sentence

How do you use subtract in a sentence?
Subtract is used as a verb. For example: “If you subtract the $100 for gas from the total cost, it was a fairly inexpensive trip.”
What is a short sentence with subtract?
“Subtract more heat, and a solid forms.”
What does subtract mean?
Subtract means to remove or reduce; especially to reduce a quantity or number.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: subtract (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use subtract in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/subtract. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.