"subplot" meaning in English

See subplot in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: subplots [plural]
Etymology: sub- + plot Etymology templates: {{prefix|en|sub|plot}} sub- + plot Head templates: {{en-noun}} subplot (plural subplots)
  1. A plot within a story, subsidiary to the main plot. Categories (topical): Narratology Translations (a subsidiary plot within a story): mellékcselekmény (Hungarian), fo-phlota [masculine] (Irish), wątek [masculine] (Polish), trama secundaria [feminine] (Spanish), argumento secundario [masculine] (Spanish), intriga secundaria [feminine] (Spanish), subplot [common-gender] (Swedish)
    Sense id: en-subplot-en-noun-dOq9MxW6 Disambiguation of Narratology: 78 15 7 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms prefixed with sub- Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 84 13 4 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 71 24 5 Disambiguation of English terms prefixed with sub-: 33 40 28 Disambiguation of 'a subsidiary plot within a story': 93 7
  2. A subdivision of a plot of land, especially one used for an agricultural experiment.
    Sense id: en-subplot-en-noun-Ktok5Uki Categories (other): English terms prefixed with sub- Disambiguation of English terms prefixed with sub-: 33 40 28
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: underplot

Verb

Forms: subplots [present, singular, third-person], subplotting [participle, present], subplotted [participle, past], subplotted [past]
Etymology: sub- + plot Etymology templates: {{prefix|en|sub|plot}} sub- + plot Head templates: {{en-verb|++}} subplot (third-person singular simple present subplots, present participle subplotting, simple past and past participle subplotted)
  1. (transitive) To provide (a story) with a subplot. Tags: transitive
    Sense id: en-subplot-en-verb-uoNCK2Xo Categories (other): English terms prefixed with sub- Disambiguation of English terms prefixed with sub-: 33 40 28

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for subplot meaning in English (5.7kB)

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        "2": "sub",
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  "etymology_text": "sub- + plot",
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          "_dis": "78 15 7",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Narratology",
          "orig": "en:Narratology",
          "parents": [
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            "Literature",
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          "text": "1978, R.B. Lee & R. Misiorowski, Script Models: A Handbook for the Media Writer,\nSubplot, a story line enclosed within the principal story to provide relief from the main plot's tension, add character dimension, etc."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, Stephen Roy Miller, The Taming of a Shrew: the 1594 quarto",
          "text": "Structurally, the two most variant scenes (outside of Scene ii) are Scenes 3 and 4 in which the compiler works out the variant subplot.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2001, Dennis O'Neil, The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics",
          "text": "In a sense, Superman's romance with Lois Lane was a subplot and [...]",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "text": "2001, Nancy Arbuthnot Johnson, Vic Neufield, Forging Links for Health Research,\nBut this story has a subplot — a subplot about fairness and how people have divergent levels of access to knowledge and resources."
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        {
          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
          "word": "mellékcselekmény"
        },
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          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "ga",
          "lang": "Irish",
          "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "fo-phlota"
        },
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          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
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          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "trama secundaria"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "argumento secundario"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "intriga secundaria"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
          "tags": [
            "common-gender"
          ],
          "word": "subplot"
        }
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        {
          "ref": "1996, The American Midland Naturalist, the University of Notre Dame",
          "text": "[...] on sixteen 8/10-acre plots (12.8 acres) well distributed over the area. [...] A 1/160-acre subplot was established in a randomly chosen corner of each [...]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
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          "text": "1999, E. K. Sadanandan Nambiar, Christian Cossalter, Site Management and Productivity in Tropical Plantation Forest,\nThere are 72 trees in each plot (6x12) and 36 trees in each subplot."
        },
        {
          "text": "2002, M. Boya Edwards, Proceedings for the Eight Biennial Southern Silvicultural Research Conference,\nHardwood and shrub stems (besides gallberry) were counted by species and measured for total height (if greater than 2 ft) on 3 strip plots per subplot that were 0.01 acre […]"
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          "experiment"
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    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "underplot"
    }
  ],
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  "word": "subplot"
}

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          "ref": "1965, Percival Hunt, The Gift of the Unicorn: Essays on Writing, page 70",
          "text": "In the pictures of places, too, an author uses economy; and for his plot, complicated and subplotted as it may seem, he cannot count on having vast stretches of eternity in which to elaborate forever.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To provide (a story) with a subplot."
      ],
      "id": "en-subplot-en-verb-uoNCK2Xo",
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        "(transitive) To provide (a story) with a subplot."
      ],
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        },
        {
          "ref": "1998, Stephen Roy Miller, The Taming of a Shrew: the 1594 quarto",
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        {
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        }
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        "A plot within a story, subsidiary to the main plot."
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          "ref": "1996, The American Midland Naturalist, the University of Notre Dame",
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          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "1999, E. K. Sadanandan Nambiar, Christian Cossalter, Site Management and Productivity in Tropical Plantation Forest,\nThere are 72 trees in each plot (6x12) and 36 trees in each subplot."
        },
        {
          "text": "2002, M. Boya Edwards, Proceedings for the Eight Biennial Southern Silvicultural Research Conference,\nHardwood and shrub stems (besides gallberry) were counted by species and measured for total height (if greater than 2 ft) on 3 strip plots per subplot that were 0.01 acre […]"
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
      "word": "mellékcselekmény"
    },
    {
      "code": "ga",
      "lang": "Irish",
      "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "fo-phlota"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "wątek"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "trama secundaria"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "argumento secundario"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "intriga secundaria"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "a subsidiary plot within a story",
      "tags": [
        "common-gender"
      ],
      "word": "subplot"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "subplot"
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  "word": "subplot"
}

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          "type": "quotation"
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        "(transitive) To provide (a story) with a subplot."
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      ]
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}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.