subcontinentaladj.
/ˌsʌbkɒntᵻˈnɛntl/, U.S. /ˌsəbˌkɑntəˈnɛn(t)l/ 1. Situated or occurring under a continent.
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the world > the earth > land > land mass > continent > [adjective] > under
subcontinental1859
1859 Theol. & Lit. Jrnl. July 146 The heat, of course, must be seated in the interior of the earth, either in a burning central sea, or in lakes of fire sub-continental and sub-marine.
1900 Nature 13 Sept. 487/1 The sub-continental excess of temperature.
1966 Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 30 1257 The suboceanic upper mantle should be enriched in lithophile relative to the subcontinental mantle.
1983 J. McPhee In Suspect Terrain 16 For the most part, it is peridotite, which is the lowest layer of the subcontinental package and is suspected to be the essence of the mantle.
2007 H. R. Rollinson Early Earth Syst. iii. 109/1 One of the important discoveries about the subcontinental lithosphere..is that beneath many Archaean cratons the subcontinental mantle is extremely ancient.
2. Cf. subcontinent n. 1.
a. Of or relating to an area of land smaller than a continent though still of a comparable order of size.
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the world > the earth > land > land mass > continent > [adjective]
continental1818
trans-continental1853
intercontinental1855
subcontinental1870
continent-wide1936
protocontinental1964
1870 Q. Jrnl. Geol. Soc. 26 p. lxii A great continent, or assemblage of subcontinental masses of land, must have existed at some former time [in the area of Polynesia].
1915 Jrnl. Geol. (Chicago) 23 38 Two ice sheets of subcontinental proportions remain in existence, the Greenland and Antarctic.
1950 Rev. Politics 12 28 If resources and knowledge were to be effectively utilized, organization and planning beyond the scope of a nation-state, even subcontinental in scale, had to be developed.
1988 P. I. Bogucki Forest Farmers & Stockherders viii. 213 Even on a sub-continental scale, such as that considered in this book, there is considerable variation in habitats that were encountered by the first agrarian communities.
2002 G. M. Henebry & J. W. Merchant in J. M. Scott Predicting Species Occurr. 294/2 Regional to subcontinental distribution of species [and] patchily distributed habitat..can further complicate validation efforts.
b. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a particular subdivision of a continent; spec. = South Asian adj. 1 (cf. subcontinent n. 2b).
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the world > the earth > land > land mass > continent > [adjective] > subcontinent
subcontinental1905
the world > people > nations > native or inhabitant of Asia > native or inhabitant of India > [adjective]
Indian?1566
Indic1635
Hindustan1655
subcontinental1973
1905 S. Afr. Med. Rec. Apr. 78/2 The very direct bearing upon South Africa generally of departures taken in one member of the sub-continental family.
1917 Atlantic Monthly Jan. 140/2 If Germany's two sub-continental colonies are to be added to the Union, Smuts must be ranked with Rhodes and Botha.
1973 Guardian 5 Mar. 5/2 ‘I've been a Pakistani for 24 years,’ she says, though her accent remains softly Irish and not at all subcontinental.
1989 G. Vidal in D. Powell Angels on Toast Introd. p. vii An area which today resembles downtown Calcutta without, alas, that subcontinental city's deltine charm.
1996 A. Hussein This Other Salt (1999) 195 A culture had grown up among the second generation of subcontinental immigrants that I hadn't really had the time or the inclination to understand.
2000 S. Broughton et al. World Music: Rough Guide II. i. 102/1 Indian films often succeed because of their songs, so filmi is subcontinental shorthand for pop.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1859