Subdefinition
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 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, the book, has been elevated to the special status of being defined in the OED."
Example
More examples"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, the book, has been elevated to the special status of being defined in the OED."
Etymology
From sub- + definition.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.