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.