subtext

English

Etymology

From sub- +‎ text.

Noun

English Wikipedia has an article on:

subtext

Wikipedia

subtext (countable and uncountable, plural subtexts)

1. (literature) The implicit meaning of a text, often a literary one, or a speech or dialogue.

   Coordinate terms: context, paratext, peritext, epitext

   Everyone heard the announcement, but not everyone agrees on what the subtext was.

   • 2011, Patrick Spedding, James Lambert, “Fanny Hill, Lord Fanny, and the Myth of Metonymy”, in Studies in Philology, volume 108, number 1, page 113:

     The word dick has meant penis since the 1890s, but Chester Gould’s private detective “Dick Tracy” has no puerile subtext related to this word.

   • 2012 July 27, Jason Zinoman, “Chekhov's Banana Peel”, in Slate‎:

     While his major plays appear on the surface to have little plot, their subtext is full of overheated romance and melodrama.

Derived terms

• subtextual (adjective)

Descendants

• → Hebrew: סאבטקסט (sábtekst)

Translations

implicit meaning of a text

Albanian: kalarupthi Armenian: ենթատեքստ (hy) (entʻatekʻst) Bulgarian: подте́кст m (podtékst) Catalan: subtext m Chinese: Mandarin: 潛台詞 / 潜台词 (zh) (qiántáicí) Czech: podtext m Danish: please add this translation if you can Finnish: alateksti (fi) French: sous-texte (fr) m Georgian: ქვეტექსტი (kveṭeksṭi) German: Subtext (de) m Hebrew: משמעות סמוייה f (mashma'ut smuya), תת כותרת f Hungarian: please add this translation if you can Kazakh: бүкпе мән (bükpe män), сөздің астары pl (sözdıñ astary), мәтін астары pl (mätın astary) Korean: 서브텍스트 (seobeu-tekseuteu) Polish: podtekst (pl) m Portuguese: subtexto m Russian: подте́кст (ru) (podtékst) Spanish: subtexto m Swedish: undertext (sv) c, undermening c

See also

• connotation
• subcurrent
• subtweet
• undercurrent

Verb

subtext (third-person singular simple present subtexts, present participle subtexting, simple past and past participle subtexted)

1. To create or use a subtext.
   • 1996, Womonspace News: Our Voice in the Lesbian Community: Dec 1996‎:

     All the participants used subtexting as an important viewing strategy of mainstream films. We are always looking for innuendoes and cues either with certain individual characters or between female characters.

   • 2002, Collins, Brandilyn, Getting into character : seven secrets a novelist can learn from actors‎, →OCLC:

     Subtexting is the technique that every author needs to know in order to create dialogue that is rich in meaning while sounding natural, for in real life, this is the way people often converse.

See also

• subtweet

Anagrams

• butt sex, buttsex

Romanian

Etymology

From sub- +‎ text.

Noun

subtext n (plural subtexte)

1. subtext

Declension

	singular			plural
	indefinite	definite		indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	subtext	subtextul		subtexte	subtextele
genitive-dative	subtext	subtextului		subtexte	subtextelor
vocative	subtextule			subtextelor

Further reading

• “subtext”, in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language) (in Romanian), 2004–2025