subˈorbital, a. and n.
[sub- 1 b.]
A. adj.
1. Situated below or under the orbit of the eye; infraorbital.
| 1822–7 Good Study Med. (1829) IV. 315 The sub-orbital branch of the fifth pair [of nerves]. 1854 Latham Native Races Russ. Emp. 28 The skin brown or brunette, and the suborbital portion of the face flattened. 1871 Darwin Desc. Man II. xviii. 280 The so-called tear-sacks or suborbital pits. 1883 Encycl. Brit. XV. 348/2 The suborbital gland or ‘crumen’ of Antelopes and Deer. |
2. [
sub- 19.] Being or having a trajectory that does not make a complete orbit of a planet.
| 1959 N.Y. Times Mag. 11 Oct. 18/1 The moment has come, after months of training, testing and short, sub⁓orbital flights, when one of seven carefully chosen men climbs into a space capsule perched high on the nose of an Atlas rocket. 1967 New Scientist 16 Nov. 424/1 The Soviet Union seems to have developed a sub-orbital missile, and the implications of the new weapon have been quickly realized. 1977 A. Hallam Planet Earth 28/2 This hypothesis demands that the impact is sufficiently catastrophic to vaporize large amounts of surface and subsurface rock, the gases being ejected into suborbital trajectories. |
B. n. A suborbital structure; a suborbital bone, cartilage, nerve, etc.
| 1834 M{supc}Murtrie Cuvier's Anim. Kingd. 192 The true Perches have the preoperculum dentated... Sometimes the sub-orbital and the humeral are slightly dentated. 1897 Günther in Mary Kingsley's W. Africa 709 The first sub⁓orbital is narrow, much narrower than the second and third, which nearly entirely cover the cheek. |
So
subˈorbitar,
-ˈorbitary [
mod.L.
suborbitārius]
adjs. and ns.| 1828 Stark Elem. Nat. Hist. I. 485 Preoperculi and *suborbitars dentated on their margin. a 1843 in Encycl. Metrop. (1845) VII. 300/2 The Suborbitar bones..of Cuvier. 1890 Billings Nat. Med. Dict., Suborbitar fissure, infraorbital fissure. Suborbitar fossa, canine fossa. |
| 1733 tr. Winslow's Anat. (1756) II. 64 The *Sub-Orbitary Ramus..runs in the Canal of the inferior Portion of the Orbit. 1828 Stark Elem. Nat. Hist. I. 464 Suborbitaries dentated. |