subsystem

noun

sub·​sys·​tem ˈsəb-ˌsi-stəm 

variants or less commonly sub-system

plural subsystems also sub-systems

: a system that is part of a larger system

These subsystems of the climate system include the atmosphere, the oceans (both upper and deep oceans), the sea ice, the ice sheets, the land surface, and the biota.

—Stephen H. Schneider

Voyager 2 was the troublesome twin. Even before launch, failures in its onboard computer subsystems had to be rectified. The problems continued after liftoff as the attitude-control subsystem behaved in an unexpected fashion.

—William I. McLaughlin

Examples of subsystem in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Ostranuats puts you at the helm of a ship crewed by a scrappy collection of the galaxy's cast-offs, salvaging parts and subsystems to fend off bankruptcy and keep your rustbucket afloat in the darkest corners of the universe. —Alan Bradley, Space.com, 7 Oct. 2025

According to the reseachers, this unified multirate architecture improves responsiveness and stability by preventing faster subsystems from being held back by slower ones and embedding the jets’ dynamics directly into the prediction horizon. —Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 1 Oct. 2025

The designs are tailored for AI algorithms and offer an improved memory subsystem, featuring configurable caches and new memory latency tolerance mechanisms that help mask latency and maximize throughput under demanding workloads. —Marco Chiappetta, Forbes.com, 8 Sep. 2025

The water recovery and treatment system on the ISS consists of several subsystems. —Berrin Tansel, The Conversation, 30 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1756, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for subsystem

• cryptosystem
• ecosystem
• intersystem
• multisystem
• photosystem
• system