Word.ws English Dictionary

subtype

subtype noun: a group of specific things within a larger, more general group.

Noun

subtype (plural subtypes)

  1. A group of specific things within a larger, more general group.
    • Highly pathogenic bird flu (HPAI) is of rising concern to epidemiologists. The US National Library of Medicine lists H5N9 as a subtype avian influenza virus.2025 January 27, Edward Helmore, “First outbreak of rare bird flu strain reported at California poultry farm”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2025
  2. The data type represented by a subclass.

Verb

subtype (third-person singular simple present subtypes, present participle subtyping, simple past and past participle subtyped)

  1. To categorise as a subtype.
    Synonyms:
    subclassify

Examples of subtype in a sentence

  • The surgeon sent a specimen of the cyst to the hospital's pathology department for staining and analysis to determine its histologic subtype.
  • Depending on the variance of the type constructor, the subtyping relation of the simple types may be either preserved, reversed, or ignored for the respective complex types.
  • The US National Library of Medicine lists H5N9 as a subtype avian influenza virus.

All 23 example sentences with subtype

Synonyms of subtype

Forms of subtype

Noun
pluralsubtypes
Verb
third-person singular presentsubtypes
present participlesubtyping
past participlesubtyped
pastsubtyped

Plural of subtype: subtypes

Origin of subtype

From sub- + type.

Words formed from subtype

Questions about subtype

What does subtype mean?
Subtype means a group of specific things within a larger, more general group.
What part of speech is subtype?
Subtype can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of subtype?
The plural of subtype is subtypes.

Words near subtype in the dictionary

  1. subtweets
  2. subtwt
  3. subtylotes
  4. subtympanic
  5. subtypable
  6. subtype
  7. subtype polymorphism
  8. subtyped
  9. subtypes
  10. subtypic
  11. subtypical

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: subtype (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: “subtype.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/subtype. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.