Definition of subject
- a. - Placed or situated under; lying below, or in a lower
situation.
- a. - Placed under the power of another; specifically
(International Law), owing allegiance to a particular sovereign or
state; as, Jamaica is subject to Great Britain.
- a. - Exposed; liable; prone; disposed; as, a country subject to
extreme heat; men subject to temptation.
- a. - Obedient; submissive.
- a. - That which is placed under the authority, dominion,
control, or influence of something else.
- a. - Specifically: One who is under the authority of a ruler
and is governed by his laws; one who owes allegiance to a sovereign or
a sovereign state; as, a subject of Queen Victoria; a British subject;
a subject of the United States.
- a. - That which is subjected, or submitted to, any physical
operation or process; specifically (Anat.), a dead body used for the
purpose of dissection.
- a. - That which is brought under thought or examination; that
which is taken up for discussion, or concerning which anything is said
or done.
- a. - The person who is treated of; the hero of a piece; the
chief character.
- a. - That of which anything is affirmed or predicated; the
theme of a proposition or discourse; that which is spoken of; as, the
nominative case is the subject of the verb.
- a. - That in which any quality, attribute, or relation, whether
spiritual or material, inheres, or to which any of these appertain;
substance; substratum.
- a. - Hence, that substance or being which is conscious of its
own operations; the mind; the thinking agent or principal; the ego. Cf.
Object, n., 2.
- n. - The principal theme, or leading thought or phrase, on
which a composition or a movement is based.
- n. - The incident, scene, figure, group, etc., which it is the
aim of the artist to represent.
- v. t. - To bring under control, power, or dominion; to make
subject; to subordinate; to subdue.
- v. t. - To expose; to make obnoxious or liable; as, credulity
subjects a person to impositions.
- v. t. - To submit; to make accountable.
- v. t. - To make subservient.
- v. t. - To cause to undergo; as, to subject a substance to a
white heat; to subject a person to a rigid test.