subculture

English

Alternative forms

• subcul (clipping)

Etymology

From sub- +‎ culture.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsʌbˌkʌltʃɚ/

Noun

subculture (plural subcultures)

1. A portion of a culture distinguished by its customs or other features, often in contrast to the larger mainstream culture.

   The goth subculture has its own mode of dress, and it has a characteristic musical style.

   • 1974, Charles Gaines, George Butler, Pumping Iron: The Art and Sport of Bodybuilding, page 7:

     Like those activities, bodybuilding is an obsession, a living (for a few), and a way of life for the people involved in it—a subculture, in a word, with its own values, aesthetics and vocabulary.

   • 2007 August 20, Douglas Martin, “Joybubbles, 58, Peter Pan of Phone Hackers, Dies”, in The New York Times‎^[1], archived from the original on 12 February 2022:

     Joybubbles (the legal name of the former Joe Engressia since 1991), a blind genius with perfect pitch who accidentally found he could make free phone calls by whistling tones and went on to play a pivotal role in the 1970s subculture of “phone phreaks,” died on Aug. 8 in Minneapolis.

   • 2014 November 24, Anand Giridharadas, “How to Talk About Race Without Talking About Race”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN, archived from the original on 16 July 2021:

     White Americans are transitioning toward minority status for the first time. As they do, perhaps their ways will be treated less as the default mainstream, and more as subcultures among subcultures.

   • 2021 July 9, Michelle Goldberg, “The Christian Right Is in Decline, and It’s Taking America With It”, in The New York Times‎^[3], →ISSN, archived from the original on 10 July 2021:

     White evangelicals once saw themselves “as the owners of mainstream American culture and morality and values,” said Jones. Now they are just another subculture.

2. (biology) A culture made by transferring microorganisms from a previous culture to a fresh growth medium

Related terms

• idioculture

Translations

portion of a culture distinguished by its customs or other features

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 亞文化 / 亚文化 (zh) (yàwénhuà), 次文化 (zh) (cìwénhuà)

• Dutch: subcultuur (nl) f
• Finnish: alakulttuuri (fi), osakulttuuri
• French: sous-culture (fr) f
• Georgian: სუბკულტურა (subḳulṭura)
• German: Subkultur (de) f
• Greek: υποπολιτισμός (el) m (ypopolitismós)
• Irish: fochultúr m
• Italian: subcultura f
• Japanese: サブカルチャー (ja) (sabukaruchā), 下位文化 (かいぶんか, kai bunka)
• Kazakh: субмәдениет (submädeniet)
• Korean: 하위문화(下位文化) (ko) (hawimunhwa), 서브컬쳐 (seobeukeolcheo)
• Latvian: subkultūra (lv) f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: subkultur m, delkultur m

  Nynorsk: subkultur m, delkultur m

• Persian: خرده‌فرهنگ (fa)
• Polish: subkultura (pl) f
• Portuguese: subcultura f
• Russian: субкульту́ра (ru) f (subkulʹtúra)
• Spanish: subcultura (es) f
• Swedish: subkultur (sv) c
• Vietnamese: tiểu văn hóa (小文化), nhóm văn hóa (𩁱文化)

Verb

subculture (third-person singular simple present subcultures, present participle subculturing, simple past and past participle subcultured)

1. (biology) To transfer (microorganisms) to a fresh growth medium in order to start a new culture
   • 1990, Heidi F. Kaeppler et al., “Silicon carbide fiber-mediated DNA delivery into plant cells”, in Plant Cell Reports‎^[4], volume 9, number 8:

     Cultures were subcultured by 20-fold dilution into fresh MS2D medium approximately every 7 d.

Further reading

• subculture on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

From sub- +‎ culture.

Noun

subculture f (plural subcultures)

1. subculture

Further reading

• “subculture”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Noun

subculture f

1. plural of subcultura