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subliminal

[suhb-lim-uh-nl]

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adjective Psychology.

existing or operating below the threshold of consciousness; being or employing stimuli insufficiently intense to produce a discrete sensation but often being or designed to be intense enough to influence the mental processes or the behavior of the individual: a subliminal stimulus; subliminal advertising.

Origin of subliminal

1885–90; sub- + Latin līmin- (stem of līmen) threshold + -al¹

Related formssub·lim·i·nal·ly, adverbnon·sub·lim·i·nal, adjectivenon·sub·lim·i·nal·ly, adverb

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for subliminally

Contemporary Examples of subliminally

And I think that, subliminally at least, the hidden story of the shoot is what helps sell us on the visible story of its subject.
A Photographer's Circus
Blake Gopnik
May 16, 2012

Historical Examples of subliminally

Such an impression, for instance, is that of alarm, suggested by some vague sound or odour which is only subliminally perceived.
Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death
Frederick W. H. Myers
I believe that his patients did subliminally receive such hints, and work them out in their own hypnotic behaviour.
Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death
Frederick W. H. Myers
Besides, she felt, more subliminally, that he was never so near slipping through her fingers as when he took that meek way.
Between The Dark And The Daylight
William Dean Howells
It is possible to assume that I knew it subliminally, and that the medium abstracted it from those hidden levels of my mind.
Psychical Miscellanea
J. Arthur Hill

British Dictionary definitions for subliminally

subliminal

adjective

resulting from processes of which the individual is not aware

(of stimuli) less than the minimum intensity or duration required to elicit a response

Derived Formssubliminally, adverb

Word Origin for subliminal

C19: from Latin sub- below + līmen threshold

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for subliminally

subliminal

adj.

1886, "below the threshold" (of consciousness), formed from sub "below" (see sub-) + Latin limen (genitive liminis) "threshold" (see limit (n.)).

Apparently a loan-translation of German unter der Schwelle (des Bewusstseins) "beneath the threshold (of consciousness)," from Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841), author of a textbook on psychology published in 1824. The scare over subliminal advertising came in 1957.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

subliminally in Medicine

subliminal

[sŭb-lĭm′ə-nəl]

adj.

Below the threshold of conscious perception. Used of stimuli.

Inadequate to produce conscious awareness but able to evoke a response.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.