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:
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
Aleocharinae, with about 17,000 known species, is the largest subfamily within the Staphylinidae family.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 27, 2023
Importantly, this is the first enzymatic function reported for this subfamily of cytochrome P450.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 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
Collectively, the Bantu languages constitute only a single, low-order subfamily of the Niger-Congo language family.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
The subfamilies are major subdivisions of the family, while the tribes and subtribe can contain one or more of genera, which is the classification level just above the species.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 3, 2024
The tyrosine kinases evolved before yeast diverged from other eukaryotes, but the other fifty-five subfamilies of kinases evolved after yeast diverged.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 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
TPS subfamilies are indicated on the circumference of the circle.
From Nature ● Jun. 10, 2014
The whole Austronesian language family consists of 959 languages, divided among four subfamilies.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
