substitution
(sʌbstɪˈtjuːʃən)
[a. OF. (mod.F.) substitution, or ad. late L. substitūtio, -ōnem, n. of action f. substituĕre to substitute. Cf. OF. sustitucion, Pr. sustitucio, It. so-, sustituzione, Sp. su(b)stitucion, Pg. substitui{cced}ão.]
† 1. a. The appointment of a deputy (or successor); deputation, delegation. by substitution, by proxy.
| 1390 Gower Conf. III. 178 Maximin..whanne he made a governour Be weie of substitucion Of Province or of region, He wolde ferst enquere his name. c 1450 J. Capgrave Life St. Gilbert xii, Be-side þe myracle do in substitucion of his successour, þer fell many oþir grete..whech wer cured. 1610 Shakes. Temp. i. ii. 103 He did beleeue He was indeed the Duke, out o' th' Substitution. 1758 Johnson Idler No. 19 ¶11 Whoever is engaged in multiplicity of business, must transact some by substitution. |
† b. A writ appointing a deputy official. Obs.
| 1754 Erskine Princ. Sc. Law (1809) 41 Sheriffs and stewarts-depute have a power to name a substitute or substitutes..within such a particular district as shall be mentioned in the substitution. |
2. a. The putting of one person or thing in place of another. Const. for, † to.
| 1612 Selden Illustr. Drayton's Poly-olb. viii. 129 S. Peters own command, to make substitution of Arch-bishops or Patriarches to Arch-Flamins, and Bishops to Flamins. a 1626 Meverell in Baconiana Physiol. (1679) 117 Every part so separated, may easily be reduced into perfect Metal without Substitution of that, or those principles which Chymists imagin to be wanting. 1681–6 J. Scott Chr. Life (1747) III. 50, I shall explain his Subordination and Substitution to Christ in this Part of his Mediation. 1756 Burke Subl. & Beaut. Wks. 1842 I. 73 Descriptive poetry operates chiefly by substitution; by the means of sounds, which by custom have the effect of realities. 1802 Paley Nat. Theol. v. 76 A mere substitution of words for reasons. 1818 Cruise Digest (ed. 2) IV. 265 A substitution of a new use, in the place of a former one. 1818 Bentham Ch. Eng. Pref. p. li, The substitution of the perfectly innoxious..ceremony, to the unfaithful imitation of a scene in private life. 1876 Jrnl. R. Geogr. Soc. XLVI. 42 The substitution of a yellow⁓stained belt for a plain uncoloured one. |
b. With reference to the principle in religious sacrifices of replacing one kind of victim by another or a bloody by an unbloody offering; esp. in Christian Theol. used to designate a doctrine of the Atonement according to which Jesus Christ suffered punishment vicariously for man.
| 1836 J. Gilbert Chr. Atonem. ii. 71 What else but substitution can be understood by the innocent suffering for the guilty? 1856 Vaughan Mystics (1860) I. 235 Both Tauler and Luther believe in substitution. The substitution of Luther is external... The substitution of Tauler is internal. 1873 Mozley Univ. Serm. viii. (1876) 173 This..is the principle upon which the sacrifice of love acts, as distinguished from the sacrifice of mere substitution. |
3. Law. a. The designation of a person or series of persons to succeed as heir or heirs on the failure of a person or persons previously named.
| 1590 Swinburne Test. 130 The fifte limitation is in vulgar or common substitutions. 1681 Stair Inst. Law Scot. ii. xxvi. 100 Where there are severall Substitutions of certain Persons, or Lines,..they are Specially called Heirs of Tailzie. 1765–8 Erskine Inst. Law Scot. iii. viii. §21 Heirs pointed out in marriage-contracts, or in bonds containing clauses of substitution, are more commonly called heirs of provision. 1826 in Nairne Peerage Evid. (1874) 78 Notwithstanding the above substitution in favor of Margaret Harriet Stewart in the event of the decease of my wife it is my intention that if the fee of my property should devolve upon the said Caroline Oliphant..thro' the predecease of my son she shall have the absolute disposal thereof in the same manner as if the substitution to the said Margaret Harriet Stewart had never been insert. 1875 Digby Real Prop. v. (1876) 235 A thing may be given inter vivos or by will to A, subject to a condition that he should on the happening of a specified event..hand it over to B. In this case a substitution is created in favour of B. |
b. (See quot.)
| 1843–56 Bouvier Law Dict. (ed. 6) II. 556/1 Substitution... This takes place in a case where a creditor has a lien on two different parcels of land, and another creditor has a subsequent lien on one only of the parcels, and the prior creditor elects to have his whole demand out of the parcel of land on which the subsequent creditor takes his lien; the latter is entitled, by way of substitution, to have the prior lien assigned to him for his benefit. |
† 4. Gram. = syllepsis. Obs.
| 1728 Chambers Cycl., Substitution,..the using of one Word for another; or a Mode, State, Manner, Person or Number of a Word for that of another. |
5. Alg. a. The method of replacing one algebraic quantity by another of equal value but differently expressed. b. The operation of passing from the primitive arrangement of n letters to any other arrangement of the same letters.
| 1710 in J. Harris Lex. Techn. II. 1842 Penny Cycl. XXIII. 198/2 A method of approximation, which is frequently used and of great importance, has obtained the name of successive substitution. 1845 De Morgan in Encycl. Metrop. II. 372/2 We may avoid this by allowing only what we will call lineal substitution. 1880 Encycl. Brit. XIII. 34/2 The method of integration by substitution corresponds to a change of the independent variable. 1892 F. N. Cole tr. Netto's Th. Substitutions 12 If an integral function of the elements x1, x2,..xn is not symmetric, it will be changed in form, and consequently, if the xλ's are entirely independent, also in value, by some of the possible interchanges of the xλ's. The process of effecting such an interchange we shall call a substitution. |
6. Mus. (See quot. c 1833.)
| c 1833 Gwilt in Encycl. Metrop. (1845) V. 777/1 Substitution, Chords of, names given to the two chords of the ninth major and minor. 1838 G. F. Graham Mus. Comp. 29/1 Passing notes, notes of grace, anticipations, substitutions, altered or chromatic notes, and so on. |
7. Chem. The replacement of one or more equivalents of an element or radical by a like number of equivalents of another. Also, the replacement of one atom or group of atoms in a molecule by another. Also attrib.
| 1848 Fownes Chem. (ed. 2) 529 With ammonia the oil [of Gaultheria procumbens] yields salicylamide, and with fuming nitric acid a substitution-product, C16 H7 NO10. 1852 Watts tr. Gmelin's Handbk. Chem. VII. 15 Dumas' Theory of Substitution and of Types. 1854 Jrnl. Chem. Soc. VII. 201 The Substitution-Compounds obtained by the Action of Nitric Acid on Cotton. 1857 Miller Elem. Chem., Org. iii. §8. 213 A number of metallic substitution derivatives of alcohol. Ibid. iv. §2. 288 Strychnia, when pure, is turned yellow by concentrated nitric acid, and yields a nitrate of a new substitution base, nitrostrychnia. 1898 Wade Introd. Org. Chem. 91 The replacement of hydrogen by chlorine is termed direct substitution and that of chlorine by hydrogen inverse substitution. 1964 N. G. Clark Mod. Org. Chem. xix. 381 The typical reactions of aromatic hydrocarbons are those of nuclear substitution, whereby one or more of the available hydrogen atoms attached to the nucleus are replaced by substituents derived from the reagent. |
8. Biol. The replacement of one organ or function by another.
| 1870 Henfrey's Bot. §162 The modifications..dependent on the substitution of one organ for another, as in many double flowers where the stamens are replaced by petals. 1878 tr. von Ziemssen's Cycl. Med. XIV. 706 The law of substitution undergoes much limitation, and this alone can be granted, viz., that in the infracortical cerebral regions sensory elements can act for sensory, and motor for motor. 1902 Rep. Brit. Assoc. Sci. 631 The two post-Darwinian principles known as ‘Substitution’ and Isomorphism or ‘Convergence’. The former may be exemplified by..the case of the Rays and Skates, in which..the tail, free to modify, becomes in one species a lengthy whiplash, in another, a vestigial stump. |
9. Philol. A sound-change consisting in the replacement of one vowel or consonant by another.
| 1876 T. Le M. Douse Grimm's Law 25 Instead of the Differentiating Impulse, he here invokes Reciprocal Compensation as the operative cause of the later substitutions. |
10. Trade. The dishonest replacement of one article of commerce by another; the passing off of one manufacturer's goods for another's.
| 1902 Pharmac. Jrnl. 6 Sept. 268/2 Several manufacturing firms which live on substitution. Ibid. 15 Nov. 508/1 Substitution, in essence and in fact, is palming off one article for another; thus in dispensing, by giving an imitation..for a proprietary or specific article. |
11. gen. Replacement (of one thing) by another. See substitute v. 4.
| 1888 [see gravitation 1]. 1938 R. D. Charques Footnotes to Theatre ii. 89 Some of the advocates of the..pictorial theatre went even so far as to recommend the substitution of the living actors by two-dimensional puppets. 1969 G. Stedman Jones in Cockburn & Blackburn Student Power 28 The political upheavals within the university in the last years are not the product of an imaginary substitution of workers by students. 1978 Financial Results Oil Majors, 1977 (Shell Internat. Petroleum Co.) 7 In Europe, oil products demand declined by 1 per cent due to warmer weather, a generally weak economic performance and substitution by other energy sources, particularly hydro-electricity. |
12. Special Comb. substitution group Math., a group all the elements of which are substitutions (sense 5 b above); now usu. called permutation group.
| 1889 [see intransitive a. 4]. 1916 G. A. Miller et al. Theory & Applications Finite Groups i. 10 It will be proved..that every finite group can be represented as a substitution group. |
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▸ substitution frame n. Linguistics a structural environment, such as a short phrase or sentence featuring a blank element instead of a word, within which a number of words or other linguistic units of a particular class can be correctly used; cf. frame n.
| 1938K. L. Pike in R. M. Brend Stud. in Tone & Intonation (1975) 4 The test of contrast in analagous position can be used for prosodic features by making a *substitution frame. 1996 Afr. Lang. & Cultures Suppl. No. 3. 22 Owens makes good use of syntactic substitution frames in his tonal analysis. |