Dictionary

subsubsense en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *upó Proto-Italic *supo Latin sub Latin sub-der. English sub- ▲ English sub- Proto-Indo-European *sent-der. Proto-Italic *sentiō Latin sentiō Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Italic *-tus Latin -tus Latin sēnsusbor. Proto-Germanic *sinnaz Frankish *sinnbor. Vulgar Latin *sennus Old French sensbor. Middle English sense English sense English subsense English subsubsense From sub- + subsense.

Meanings

1. (rare) A subsense of a subsense.
   • The Oxford English Dictionary gives scores of different senses, subsenses, and subsubsenses for "eat" whereas the Hanyu Da Cidian offers about a score of different senses for chi; most of the extended, figurative, and slang usages of chi ("eat") are very recent – within the last century or two. 1998, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Reviews, volume 8, →ISBN, page 82:
   • To simplify the discussion, I will assume that the lexeme has no subsenses, subsubsenses, etc.—although this is seldom the case in actuality. 1986, International Federation of Translators, Babel, page 44:
   • The paired sense data can be classified as one of four levels of similarity: the Roman-numeralled homograph level (band-I (group) vs band-II (ring)), the major sense level (band-I.1 (music group) vs band-I.2 (other group)), the subsense level (which we arbitrarily use to refer to the distance between a general sense number such as I.1 and its specialization (I.1.2)), and finally the subsubsense level (such as between I.1.1 and I.1.2).[…]In contrast, at the finer subsubsense level only 52 per cent of the given pairs were translated differently. 2005, Sampson, Geoffrey, McCarthy, Diana, editors, Corpus Linguistics: Readings in a Widening Discipline, A & C Black, →ISBN, pages 365–367:

Forms