ˈsub-ˌtitle, n.
[sub- 5 b.]
1. A subordinate or additional title of a literary work.
| 1825 T. H. Horne Outlines for Classification of Library 86 To each Volume should be prefixed..an Alphabetical Table of th several Titles and sub-titles. 1865 Geo. Eliot Let. 16 Sept. (1956) IV. 203 Mr. Lewes..thinks my suggestion as to the sub-title acceptable. 1878 N. Amer. Rev. CXXVII. 346 It is the sub-title rather than the title that indicates the chief importance of his work. 1884 Jennings Croker Papers III. p. xxiii, ‘Sybil, or the New Nation’, as the book was at first called, the sub-title being afterwards changed to ‘The Two Nations’. 1895 Bookman Oct. 20/1 She should either have called it ‘Rome in the Dark Ages’, or have added ‘The Dark Ages’ as a subtitle. |
2. A repetition of the chief words of the full title of a book at the top of the first page of text; also, a half-title.
| 1890 N. & Q. Ser. vii. IX. 143/2 Title and contents, xii, followed by sub-title to whist. 1896 Moxon's Mech. Exerc., Printing p. xviii, The running title and the sub-titles. |
3. Cinemat. and Television. A caption which appears on a cinema or television screen, esp. to translate the dialogue or to explain the action. Freq. in pl.
| 1909 Moving Picture World 27 Feb. 235/1 If the audience is not given time to read the sub-titles or if they are indistinct..the spectators lose the thread. 1924 Wodehouse Leave it to Psmith i. 30 What he did not know about erring wives and licentious clubmen could have been written in a sub-title. 1931 B. Brown Talking Pictures xi. 287 Another [camera]..photographs a sub-title tablet about a foot across and illuminated by a couple of arc lamps. 1944 [see dub v.5]. 1957 M. Summerton Sunset Hour x. 140 The French film was mediocre. I ignored the sub-titles, testing my ear on the dialogue. 1975 G. Howell In Vogue 5/1 The subtitles to films brought American slang to Britain... ‘Beatrix Esmond goes nix on the love-stuff.’ |
So ˈsubtitle v. trans., (a) to furnish with a specified sub-title; (b) Cinemat. and Television, to furnish (a film or programme) with subtitles. Also ˈsubtitled ppl. a.; ˈsubtitler; ˈsubtitling vbl. n.
| 1891 J. W. Ebsworth Roxb. Ball. VII. 358 Another ballad, sub-titled, ‘The Willow Green turned into Carnation’. 1895 Advance (Chicago) 15 Aug. 236/3 The Countess Bettina is subtitled the History of an Innocent Scandal. 1930 E. V. Knox in Living Age 1 Apr. 188 It is a lingua franca, or a lingua californica... The subtitlers have created a wilderness and called it prose. 1948 Brit. Film Rev. Apr. 10 The Cinemas of Great Britain are now showing the sub-titled films so well known to readers in other parts of the world. Ibid., It cannot be said that subtitling in England is uniformly good. 1950 Jrnl. Soc. Motion Picture & Television Engin. Nov. 536 Several operations are necessary in order to subtitle pictures. 1968 Punch 31 Jan. 154/3 The sub-titler..can sum up a passage of flashy philosophy in one profound-seeming sentence. 1979 K. Conlon Move in Game vi. 71 ‘Tell me some more about academic life.’.. ‘Well... There were subtitled foreign films.’ 1982 English World-Wide III. i. 53 Films are virtually all subtitled. |