subfamily
Americannoun
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subfamilies
plural
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Biology. a category of related genera within a family.
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Linguistics. (in the classification of related languages within a family) a category of a higher order than a branch.
noun
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biology a taxonomic group that is a subdivision of a family
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any analogous subdivision, as of a family of languages
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of subfamily
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The new findings challenge that view, offering strong evidence that the Podonominae subfamily most likely began in the Southern Hemisphere and later expanded worldwide.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 15, 2025
Some hematophages are well-known: For example, vampire bats in the subfamily Desmodontinae helped inspire the legendary monsters that bear their name and no one can forget blood-sucking mosquitoes and leeches.
From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2024
Horticulturist Qiang Xu of Huazhong Agricultural University in China and his colleagues recently set out to map the evolutionary journey of the orange subfamily.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 11, 2023
It describes a large and geographically widespread subfamily of African languages that make up part of the larger Niger-Congo language family.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
At the one extreme, Mandarin and its relatives, which constitute the Chinese subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan language family, are distributed continuously from North to South China.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Kane hopes that the vaccine strategy his team identified can be applied to other viruses -- other coronavirus subfamilies as well as other viruses such as influenza viruses.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 1, 2024
Fifty-five subfamilies of kinases evolved before yeast diverged from other eukaryotes, but the tyrosine kinases evolved after yeast diverged.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
There were dozens of subfamilies distinguished by different types of teeth, diets and reproductive styles.
From Scientific American ● May 17, 2022
Today, after several thousand years Noruz is the cornerstone of all the Iranian subfamilies being from northern China or Bulgaria.
From New York Times ● Apr. 19, 2016
Most of the 176 other subfamilies are crammed into West Africa, a small fraction of the entire Niger-Congo range.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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