Subduction
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The action of being pushed or drawn beneath another object. countable, uncountable
- 2 a geological process in which one edge of a crustal plate is forced sideways and downward into the mantle below another plate wordnet
- 3 The process of one tectonic plate moving beneath another and sinking into the mantle at a convergent plate boundary. countable, uncountable
"Therefore, both a mantle plume and also the subductions of the oceanic plates may have mutually contributed to create the magmatic zone."
- 4 The act of subducting or taking away. countable, uncountable
"threatened the subduction of his own presence"
- 5 Arithmetical subtraction. countable, uncountable
"the other Operation of Arithmetick , namely , Subduction"
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- 6 A surjection between diffeological spaces such that the target is identified as the pushforward of the source. countable, uncountable
"Accordingly, a diffeological principal S¹-bundle over a diffeological space X is a subduction π : P → X and a smooth map τ satisfying the same conditions; see [30] for a thorough discussion."
Example
More examples"As subduction occurs below the continental shelf, earthquakes become more likely."
Etymology
From Latin subductiō, from subdūcere (“to draw from under or below”). Equivalent to subduct + -ion or subduce + -tion.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.