Subscribe

How to spell subscribe

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce subscribe

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does subscribe mean?

1. verbTo arrange to receive or pay regularly for a publication, service, or content.
2. verbTo express agreement with or support for an opinion, theory, or belief.

Subscribe in a sentence

• Thousands of readers subscribe to the weekly newsletter.

• Few economists still subscribe to that outdated theory.

• You can subscribe to the streaming service for a monthly fee.

• Many people do not subscribe to the idea that money guarantees happiness.

Where does subscribe come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin subscribere, formed from sub, meaning 'under' or 'beneath', and scribere, meaning 'to write'. Its literal sense was to write one's name underneath a document, which is exactly what a signatory does at the foot of a page. English borrowed it in the fifteenth century, at first carrying that original idea of signing or endorsing something in writing. From the act of signing a pledge it grew to mean putting one's name down to support a cause or to pay for a publication, and in modern times it covers paying regularly for a service or registering to receive content. The same scribere root sits inside a whole family of relatives such as 'describe', 'manuscript', and 'scribe' itself, and remembering that the word ends in the same -scribe as those cousins helps avoid the temptation to spell it with the -y sound as 'subscrybe'.

How the word is built

• sub- (under, beneath)
• scribe (from Latin scribere: to write)