Subset

How to spell subset

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce subset

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does subset mean?

1. nounA group of items that forms part of a larger group, with every member also belonging to that larger group.

Subset in a sentence

• The survey looked at only a small subset of the customer base.

• In mathematics, every set is a subset of itself.

Where does subset come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is a modern English compound formed from the prefix sub-, which comes from Latin and means 'under' or 'below', and the everyday English word 'set' meaning a group or collection of things. The prefix sub- has long been productive in English for building scientific and technical terms, signalling something that sits beneath or within a larger whole. 'Subset' rose to prominence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries within mathematics, particularly set theory, to describe a set whose members are all contained within another set. From there it spread into general usage to mean any smaller portion contained within a larger group. The spelling is reassuringly transparent, since both halves are common words, and the only thing to watch is keeping the single 't' at the end rather than doubling it.

How the word is built

• sub- (under, below)
• set (a collection of things)