subjacent

comparative more subjacent · superlative most subjacent

1. Lying beneath or at a lower level; underlying.

   [in relation to the second floor flat in a tenement building] the subjacent first floor and ground floor flats were ... owned by the first defenders.

   2002, Scottish Court of Session, Anderson v. Express Investment Company Ltd.

   2 more examples

   In some places, however, quartz reefs, payably auriferous while in Silurian rock, have been followed down to subjacent granite, and have there been found to thin out and become unprofitable […]

   1887, R. A. Murray, Victoria. Geology and Physical Geography, page 126

   Since the times of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, however, there had always been a subjacent stream of travel literature which had queried the civilizing function of Western penetration of such societies.

   2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, pages 194–5