subcategory

subcategory noun: with respect to a given category; a narrower category.

Noun

subcategory (plural subcategories)

With respect to a given category; a narrower category.
- The moment subcategories of the overall population are denied rights, the rights of all are threatened.2005 August 8, Leslie Feinberg, “1952 court victory against anti-gay charges”, in Workers World
- I have categories within subcategories because I get so many submissions about poop and potty training.2013 April 2, CNN Living Staff, “Beware the parental overshare”, in CNN
A subclass of a category which is itself a category, whose arrows are a restriction of the arrows of the parent category, and whose composition rule is a restriction of the parent category's.

Synonyms:

child category, supercategory

Some authors on asexuality have attempted to create subcategories of aesthetic attractions as well.
The first subcategory is what I choose to call Fat Fingers Syndrome.
One of the subcategories of the traditional toponyms (and, at the same time, of the traditional urbanonyms) are the horonyms.

plural	subcategories
alternative form	sub-category

From sub- + category.

What does subcategory mean?: Subcategory means with respect to a given category; a narrower category.
What part of speech is subcategory?: Subcategory is a noun.
What is the plural of subcategory?: The plural of subcategory is subcategories.

Adapted from Wiktionary: subcategory (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-NaomiAmethyst-subcategory.wav.

Cite this entry: “subcategory.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/subcategory. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.