sub-ˈlethal, a.
[sub- 19, 21.]
a. Med. Of a drug, treatment, etc.: having an effect (only just) less than lethal.
| 1896 Allbutt's Syst. Med. I. 561 Beginning with minute sub⁓lethal doses of fully virulent poisons. 1910 Hanson & Zinsser Textbk. Bacteriol. xii. 195 (heading) Active immunization with sublethal doses of fully virulent bacteria. 1937 Ann. Reg. 1936 59 Experimental epidemiologists showed the importance of latent and sub-lethal infection. 1947 Radiology XLIX. 303/1 At sublethal doses, the minimum granulocyte count occurs at about the same time as in non-survivors. 1977 J. L. Harper Population Biol. Plants xvi. 493 These are the pathogens that kill young seedlings,..that convert sub-lethal damage done by other causes into lethal damage. |
b. Genetics. Of an allele or a chromosomal abnormality: = semi-lethal a.
| 1935 Jrnl. Heredity XXVI. 357/2 Hadley reported the inheritance of a sub-lethal, hairless defect in Holsteins [sc. a breed of cattle]. 1946 Nature 16 Nov. 722/2 When a gene is sublethal, as are those for hæmophilia and achondroplasic dwarfism, its elimination by natural selection is in approximate equilibrium with its appearance by mutation. 1961 R. D. Baker Essent. Path. xi. 274 ‘Sublethal genes’ are those which produce malformations compatible with life in the uterus but responsible for death soon after birth. |
Hence subˈlethally adv.
| 1958 Science 4 July 32 (heading) Delayed deaths in sublethally X-rayed F1 hybrid mice injected with parental strain spleen cells. 1978 Nature 13 Apr. 625/2 Sub⁓lethally irradiated adult BALB/c mice. |