subculture
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A culture made by transferring microorganisms from a previous culture to a fresh growth medium.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
suhbkuhlcherSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsʌbkəltʃɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
biology
A culture made by transferring microorganisms from a previous culture to a fresh growth medium
A portion of a culture distinguished by its customs or other features, often in contrast to the larger mainstream culture.
verb
biology
To transfer (microorganisms) to a fresh growth medium in order to start a new culture
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A culture made by transferring microorganisms from a previous culture to a fresh growth medium
Used this way, subculture is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A minority youth culture whose distinctiveness depended largely on the social class and ethnic background of its members.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.