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subset. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
subset, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
subset in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
From sub- + set.
Pronunciation
Noun
subset (plural subsets)
- (set theory, of a set S) A set A such that every element of A is also an element of S.
The set is a both a subset and a proper subset of while the set is a subset of but not a proper subset of .
- 1963, David B. MacNeil, Modern Mathematics for the Practical Man, David Van Nostrand, Republished as 2013, David B. MacNeil, Fundamentals of Modern Mathematics: A Practical Review, Dover, page 3,
- In the foregoing example, the set D of the first four letters of the alphabet, was a subset of the set A of all the letters of the alphabet, because A includes all the members of D.
1997, Wolfgang Filter, K. Weber, Integration Theory, Chapman & Hall, page 5:Let be a subset of the topological space and take .
2007, Judith D. Sally, Paul J. Sally, Jr., Roots to Research: A Vertical Development of Mathematical Problems, American Mathematical Society, page 280:We say that a set has a finite partition into subsets , if , where the subsets are pairwise disjoint, that is, , if . (We do not require that the subsets be nonempty.)
- A group of things or people, all of which are in a specified larger group.
We asked a subset of the population of the town for their opinion.
Usage notes
- (set theory):
- The subset relation is denoted ⊆ (⊂ for proper subset), and one writes A ⊆ B for "A is a subset of B".
- It is permissible for A to contain no elements: the empty set is a subset of every set (including itself).
Synonyms
Antonyms
Derived terms
Translations
set whose elements are within another given set
group contained in a larger group
Verb
subset (third-person singular simple present subsets, present participle subsetting, simple past and past participle subsetted)
- (transitive) To take a subset of.
- (transitive, computing, typography) To extract only the portions of (a font) that are needed to display a particular document.