Meanings
- uncountableThe subsumption of new knowledge that causes older knowledge to be forgotten but leaves the mental framework for both the old and new knowledge to be enhanced.
There is a difference between obliterative subsumption that may occur after meaningful learning and forgetting that occurs after rote learning.
2022, Joseph D. Novak, Helping People Learn2 more examples
Forgetting occurs, according to Ausubel, where there is zero dissociability (or obliterative subsumption ) because new learning cannot be distinguished from the old .
2001, Grahame Hill, A Level Psychology Through Diagrams, page 241When you consider the fact that at least tens of thousands of neurons are involved in subsumption of a new concept, there are almost unlimited neurological possibilities for varying degrees of subsumption or obliterative subsumption in the course of meaningful learning and later when knowledge is retrieved.
2010, Joseph Donald Novak, Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge, page 66
Cite this entry
obliterative subsumption. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/obliterative%20subsumption
“obliterative subsumption.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/obliterative%20subsumption. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “obliterative subsumption,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/obliterative%20subsumption.
Source: obliterative subsumption on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.