Dictionary

subsidence en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈsʌbsɪdəns/
• /sʌbˈsaɪdəns/
• (US) audio
• /ˈsʌbsədəns/

Etymology

Latin subsidens, subsidentis, present participle of subsidere. Equivalent to subside + -ence.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The process of becoming less active or severe.
   • The subdual or subsidence of the more violent passions. 1754, William Warburton, Sermon preached before the King, at Kensington, October 27, 1754:
2. (countable, uncountable) A sinking of something to a lower level, especially of part of the surface of the Earth due to underground excavation, seismic activity or underground or ground water depletion, or the rocks in a geological basin, due to continued deposition from above.
   • In the early hours of April 28, 1953, it was completely blocked by a subsidence, which caused the death of five persons, when a pair of semi-detached houses collapsed into the cavity. 1957 June 14, “Notes and News: Clifton Hill Tunnel, Swinton”, in Railway Magazine, page 433:
   • Iran’s president has claimed Iran has no choice but to move its capital from Tehran to the south of the country due to the city’s over-expansion, the lack of adequate water supplies and the growing threat of subsidence. 2025 October 2, David Wintour, “Iran must move its capital from Tehran, says president as water crisis worsens”, in The Guardian, Guardian Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC:
   • Subsidence was first noted in the late nineteenth century. An increasing thirst for groundwater, which creates subterranean pockets that are then compressed by the land above, and upriver damming of the Mississippi, which prevents the replenishment of sediments, have undermined the city to the point that it is now thought to be subsiding by up to 12 millimetres per year. 2020, David Farrier, “Thin Cities”, in Footprints, 4th Estate, →ISBN:
   • Everyone knows that a main line running through a coalfield is prone to speed restrictions because of land subsidence. […] The rate of subsidence may vary from less than an inch a month in the case of a deep seam of coal, to as rapid a decline as 16in a month above a shallow seam. The effect of subsidence on permanent way and civil engineering structures needs no emphasis. 1961 November, “Talking of Trains: The subsidence problem”, in Trains Illustrated, page 651:

Forms

Deriveds

antisubsidence · subsidence crater

Relateds

subside

Translations (22)

hu csillapodás (process of becoming less active) · grc ἵζημα (sinking of ground) · fr subsidence (sinking of ground) · it subsidenza (sinking of ground) · de Absenkung (sinking of ground) · ru успокое́ние (process of becoming less active) · ru у́быль (process of becoming less active) · az səngimə (process of becoming less active) · de Abklingen (process of becoming less active) · cmn 沉降 (sinking of ground) · ru утиха́ние (process of becoming less active) · de Nachlassen (process of becoming less active) · es debilitamiento (process of becoming less active) · fi laantuminen (process of becoming less active) · de Senkung (sinking of ground) · de Setzung (sinking of ground) · pt enfraquecimento (process of becoming less active) · pt subsidência (sinking of ground) · hu lecsendesedés (process of becoming less active) · ru спад (process of becoming less active) · fi vajoaminen (sinking of ground) · es subsidencia (sinking of ground)