Word.ws English Dictionary

subdefinition

subdefinition noun: a lesser or secondary definition.

Noun

subdefinition (plural subdefinitions)

  1. A lesser or secondary definition.
    • In the four-volume supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary (hereafter, OED), its editor, Burchfield, supplied a separate subdefinition stating that Hobson-Jobson was ‘[u]sed as the title of a famous collection of Anglo-Indian words’ [...] Thus, along with the Bible and the Koran, Hobson-Jobson...2018, James Lambert, “Setting the Record Straight: An In-depth Examination of Hobson-Jobson”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 31, number 4, →DOI, page 486

Forms of subdefinition

pluralsubdefinitions

Origin of subdefinition

From sub- + definition.

Questions about subdefinition

What does subdefinition mean?
Subdefinition means a lesser or secondary definition.
What part of speech is subdefinition?
Subdefinition is a noun.
What is the plural of subdefinition?
The plural of subdefinition is subdefinitions.

Words near subdefinition in the dictionary

  1. subdeck
  2. subdecks
  3. subdecumbent
  4. subdecuple
  5. subdecurrent
  6. subdefinition
  7. subdefinitions
  8. subdeflected
  9. subdegree
  10. subdeities
  11. subdeity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: subdefinition (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:

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