Subset Meaning
/ˈsʌbˌsɛt/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA set A such that every element of A is also an element of S.
nounA group of things or people, all of which are in a specified larger group.
Sentence Examples
In American English, stoats are a subset of weasels, while in British English, they aren't.
Mathematics is just a subset of type theory.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The set of red cars is a ____ of the larger set of all cars.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The researchers focused on a specific ____ of the data that dealt with the local weather patterns.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *upó Proto-Italic *supo Latin sub Latin sub-der. English sub- English set English subset From sub- + set.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Let A be a subset of the topological space X and take x#92;inX."
— 1997, Wolfgang Filter, K. Weber, Integration Theory, Chapman & Hall, page 5:
"We say that a set S has a finite partition into subsets S#95;1,#92;dots,S#95;n, if S#61;S#95;i#92;cup#92;dots#92;cupS#95;n, where the subsets are pairwise disjoint, that is, S#95;i#92;capS#95;j#61;#92;empty, if i#92;nej. (We do not require that the subsets be nonempty.)"
— 2007, Judith D. Sally; Paul J. Sally, Jr., Roots to Research: A Vertical Development of Mathematical Problems, American Mathematical Society, page 280:
"Interestingly, this [the core lexicon] is not all of the words of the language: It turns out that most of the words in a language from an industrialized culture come from narrow semantic domains, such that only a subset of speakers know them."
— 2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Introduction” (chapter 1), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 2:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The set of red cars is a ____ of the larger set of all cars.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The researchers focused on a specific ____ of the data that dealt with the local weather patterns.