▪ I. subˈdominant, n.1 Mus.
[sub- 4. Cf. F. sousdominante.]
The note next below the dominant of a scale; the fourth note in ascending and the fifth in descending a scale. Also attrib.
| 1793 Encycl. Brit. (1797) XII. 502/1 The chord of the sub-dominant. Ibid. 548/2 These three sounds, the tonic, the tonic dominant, and the sub-dominant, contain in their chords all the notes which enter into the scale of the mode. 1835 Court Mag. VI. 26/1 She might if she pleased break through that eternal descent by two semitones from the dominant to the sub-dominant. 1863 Atkinson Ganot's Physics §207 (1866) 162 The tonic, dominant, and sub-dominant chords. Ibid. 163 The dominant and sub-dominant bear major triads. |
▪ II. subˈdominant, a. (n.2)
[sub- 14.]
1. Less than dominant, not quite dominant. (See quots.)
| 1826 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. xlix. IV. 493 We may take Scolia for an example of a subdominant group beginning more southward. a 1909 Buck's Med. Handbk. III. 260 (Cent. Dict. Supp.) Those disturbances which are dominant become focal in consciousness, or the mind is fully conscious of such. Those that are sub-dominant bring about marginal or sub-conscious psychical states. |
2. Ecol. Designating a species which is prevalent in a community, but below the dominant in precedence. Also as n. Cf. dominant a. 8.
| 1909 Groom & Balfour tr. Warming's Oecol. Plants xxxv. 139 Every community consists of dominant and sub-dominant species, as well as of others that are more or less dependent upon these and occur only here and there. 1923 Ecology IV. 13 Species belonging to life-forms of subordinate rank (i.e. subdominant species) have also to be considered. 1933 [see co-dominant n.]. 1969 Gloss. for Landscape Work (B.S.I.) v. 39 Sub-dominant..Of a species, that species in a mixed crop which is selected to come next in precedence to the dominant. |