Subsurface

adj, noun

adj, noun ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Something that is below the layer that is on the surface.

    "Before we could lay the flooring we had to lay a subsurface under it to keep it flat and support it."

  2. 2
    A surface which is a submanifold of another surface. countable
Adjective
  1. 1
    Below the surface. not-comparable

    "variations in subsurface conditions"

Adjective
  1. 1
    beneath the surface wordnet

Example

More examples

"We thought Enceladus was just boring and cold until the Cassini mission discovered a liquid water subsurface ocean."

Etymology

From sub- + surface.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.