subscribe
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /səbˈskɹaɪb/
rhymes: -aɪb
Forms: form: subscribes
form: subscribing
form: subscribed
form: subscribed
Etymology: From Middle English subscriben, subskryben, from Latin subscrībere. Compare its native English equivalent underwrite.
Senses: examples: text: Would you like to subscribe or subscribe a friend to our new magazine, Lexicography Illustrated?
glosses: To sign up to have copies of a publication, such as a newspaper or a magazine, delivered for a period of time.
examples: text: I subscribed to this streaming service years ago.
glosses: To pay for the provision of a service, such as Internet access, a cell phone plan, or a streaming service.
examples: text: I don’t subscribe to that theory.
info_templates: extra_data: words: to
expansion: [with to]
glosses: To believe or agree with a theory or an idea [with to].
glosses: To pay money to be a member of an organization.
examples: text: […] under no circumstances could I ever again be nominated for any public office, as no corporation would subscribe to a campaign fund if I was on the ticket, and that they would subscribe most heavily to beat me;
ref: 1913, Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography:
glosses: To contribute or promise to contribute money to a common fund.
examples: text: Each man subscribed ten dollars.
glosses: To promise to give, by writing one's name with the amount.
examples: text: The capital which had been subscribed to this bank, at two different subscriptions, amounted to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds, of which eighty per cent only was paid up.
ref: 1776, Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations:
topics: business
finance
glosses: To agree to buy shares in a company.
examples: text: Parties subscribe a covenant or contract; a man subscribes a bond.
text: Officers subscribe their official acts, and secretaries and clerks subscribe copies or records.
text: [E]very officer who shall hereafter be appointed, shall, before he enters on the duties of his office, subscribe these rules and regulations.
ref: 1806, US Articles of War:
text: All the bishops subscribed the sentence.
ref: 1855, Henry Hart Milman, History of Latin Christianity:
glosses: To sign; to mark with one's signature as a token of consent or attestation.
examples: text: [They] subscribed their names under them.
ref: c. 1510, Thomas More, The Life of Pico della Mirandola:
text: […] although the will is holographic, and a holographic instrument cannot be admitted to probate where testator told the subscribing witnesses that it was not his will, […]
ref: 1906, The New York Supplement, page 729:
text: Commission to take testimony: testimony of subscribing witnesses may be taken by commission […]
ref: 1957, Estates of Incompetent Veterans: Hearings Before the United States House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, page 1968:
qualifier: archaic outside law
glosses: To write (one’s name) at the bottom of a document; to sign (one's name).
examples: text: Admit no other way to save his life ,
(As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
But in the loss of question) […]
ref: c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
glosses: To sign away; to yield; to surrender.
glosses: To yield; to admit to being inferior or in the wrong.
examples: text: I will subscribe him a coward.
ref: 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:
glosses: To declare over one's signature; to publish.
examples: text: Please like this video, and subscribe to my YouTube channel.
glosses: To indicate interest in the communications made by a person or organization.
examples: text: If you subscribe to the MouseClick event, your application can react to the user clicking the mouse.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
glosses: To register for notifications about an event or similar.
Synonyms: sign up
underwrite
Derived terms: oversubscribe
resubscribe
subscribable
subscriber
subscript
subscription
unsubscribe