subcriticaladj.

1823 T. Miner in T. Miner & W. Tully Ess. Fevers i. x. 198 The mercurial action is to be resolutely continued, till a manifest sub-critical change.

1859 Trans. Med. Soc. N.Y. 152 in Docs. Assembly State N.Y. (82nd Session, Doc. No. 170) III Death under these circumstances will generally occur..about the fifth or sixth day from the invasion of the disease, which is the time the sub-critical period takes place.

1935 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 15 June 1236/1 Sunlight falling upon the head and neck could be of local importance only when the body temperature was already subcritical.

1951 New Phytologist 50 46 Soil drought could be regarded as beginning when the soil moisture fell to a subcritical value.

1992 Sci. Amer. Oct. 10/3 Communities with a subcritical or low diversity of organisms lack the momentum to develop explosively into a new breed.

2008 Acad. Emergency Med. 15 17 This was a cross-sectional study of a convenience sample of adolescents 12-17 years old presenting..with subcritical illness or injury.

1903 G. S. Williams in Trans. Amer. Soc. Civil Engineers 51 326 The old formulas of flow..appear, in the light of this investigation, to be limited to that brief period of transition from the sub-critical-velocity to the ordinary flow, and to have no legitimate existence beyond that range.

1943 R. C. Binder Fluid Mech. xiv. 215 The hydraulic jump is an abrupt transition between what might be called supercritical and subcritical flow.

1981 Sci. Amer. (U.K. ed.) Apr. 138/2 A ridge across a streambed provides an example of how a barrier can create supercritical flow, a standing wave and a hydraulic jump in an initially subcritical flow.

2008 M. Kay Pract. Hydraulics (ed. 2) v. 159 A vigorous turbulent mixing action occurs as the flow jumps abruptly from super- to sub-critical flow.

1930 Trans. Amer. Inst. Mining & Metall. Engineers (Techn. Publ. No. 348) 5 The quenching to this subcritical temperature must be rapid enough to preserve the austenite essentially unchanged.

1935 M. A. Grossmann Princ. Heat Treatm. viii. 113 Subcritical annealing will not induce as much softness as a full anneal.

2008 M. F. McGuire Stainless Steels Design Engineers xiii. 166/1 Unstabilized grades should not be welded, and if they are, full subcritical annealing is required.

1945 D. Dietz Atomic Energy in Coming Era xii. 146 It was seen..that the mechanism of the bomb would have to bring sub-critical masses of the material together quickly.

1961 Engineering 7 Apr. 487/1 Two new light-water moderated and natural-uranium fuelled subcritical assemblies are appearing on the nuclear market in this country.

2006 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 25 May 43/2 In the subcritical stage fissions do take place but they do not produce a self-sustaining chain reaction.