subject
Forms
- Comparative
- more subject
- Superlative
- most subject
- Plural
- subjects
Definitions
1.Likely to be affected by or to experience something; liable.
- All human things are subject to decay.
- Menu listings and prices are subject to change.
- He's subject to sneezing fits.
2.Conditional upon something; used with to.
- The local board sets local policy, subject to approval from the State Board.
3.Placed or situated under; lying below, or in a lower situation.
- What subject do you like best?
4.Placed under the power of another; owing allegiance to a particular sovereign or state.
- What subject do you like best?
1.By extension: an actor or agent; one who takes action.
2.The main topic of a paper, work of art, discussion, field of study, etc.
- I am th' unhappy subject of these quarrels. All these quarrels are about me.
- Make choice of a subject beautifull and noble, which […] shall […]afford[…] an ample field of matter wherein to expatiate itself.
- Then I had a good think on the subject of the hocussing of Cigarette, and I was reluctantly bound to admit that once again the man in the corner had found the only possible solution to the mystery.
3.A particular area of study.
- Her favorite subject is physics.
4.The noun, pronoun or noun phrase about whom the statement is made. In active clauses with verbs denoting an action, the subject is the actor. In clauses in the passive voice the subject is the target of the action.
- In the active sentence ‘The cat ate the mouse’, ‘the cat’ is the subject and ‘the mouse’ is the object.
- A subject (Sub) is a word, phrase, or clause that performs the action of or acts upon the verb in the predicate.
- In the passive sentence ‘the mouse was eaten by the cat’, ‘the mouse’ is the subject even though it is the target (patient) of the action, and ‘the cat’ is the agent.
Frequency
Overall
Common· #803
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Common
- Academic
- Common
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Etymology
From Middle English subget
From Old French suget
From Latin subiectus (“lying under or near, adjacent, also subject, exposed”), as a noun, subiectus (“a subject, an inferior”), subiectum (“the subject of a proposition”), past participle of subiciō (“throw, lay, place”)