subtext
subtext noun: an implicit meaning of a text, often a literary one, or a speech or dialogue.
Noun
subtext (countable and uncountable, plural subtexts)
- An implicit meaning of a text, often a literary one, or a speech or dialogue.
- Everyone heard the announcement, but not everyone agrees on what the subtext was.
- The word dick has meant penis since the 1890s, but Chester Gould’s private detective “Dick Tracy” has no puerile subtext related to this word.2011, Patrick Spedding, James Lambert, “Fanny Hill, Lord Fanny, and the Myth of Metonymy”, in Studies in Philology, volume 108, number 1, page 113
Verb
subtext (third-person singular simple present subtexts, present participle subtexting, simple past and past participle subtexted)
- To create or use a subtext.
- All the participants used subtexting as an important viewing strategy of mainstream films. We are always looking for innuendoes and cues either with certain individual characters or between female characters.1996, Womonspace News: Our Voice in the Lesbian Community: Dec 1996
- Subtexting is the technique that every author needs to know in order to create dialogue that is rich in meaning while sounding natural, for in real life, this is the way people often converse.2002, Collins, Brandilyn, Getting into character : seven secrets a novelist can learn from actors, →OCLC
Examples of subtext in a sentence
- “Vessels are so over” is the apparent subtext of this potpourri of the figurative, abstract and installational.
- Hannibal went further though, elevating the subtext into text by making Hannigram arguably canon by the end of season 3.
- This wasn’t really even subtext: Gaga and Kelly playacted an Oval Office affair at the American Music Awards.
Forms of subtext
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | subtexts |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | subtexts |
| present participle | subtexting |
| past participle | subtexted |
| past | subtexted |
Origin of subtext
From sub- + text.
Words formed from subtext
Questions about subtext
- What does subtext mean?
- Subtext means an implicit meaning of a text, often a literary one, or a speech or dialogue.
- What part of speech is subtext?
- Subtext can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of subtext?
- The plural of subtext is subtexts.
Words near subtext in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: subtext (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: “subtext.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/subtext. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.