substring

S1U1B3S1T1R1I1N1G2

noun

A (possibly zero-length) string of characters that is contained in another string.

“The substrings of "button" include "butt", "ton", and "on".”

OriginEnglish string ← Latin sub- ← Proto-Italic *supo →
Less commonScrabble 12
Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

nounsubstring (plural substrings)

plural substrings

  1. computingA (possibly zero-length) string of characters that is contained in another string.

    The substrings of "button" include "butt", "ton", and "on".

verbsubstring (third-person singular simple present substrings, present participle substringing, simple past and past participle substringed)

present singular third person substrings · participle present substringing · participle past substringed · past substringed

  1. transitivecomputingTo extract a substring from.

    If an existing character-based column is increased in size and your program does not need the extra characters, the view can be changed to force the smaller size by substringing the existing column.

    2015, Nadir K. Amra, Hernando Bedoya, Tony Cairns, Modernizing IBM i Applications from the Database up to the User Interface and Everything in Between
  2. transitivecomputingTo take as a substring.

    In this example, knowing that MY_SOUNDEX returns at most six characters, we are substringing the first six characters.

    2010, Thomas Kyte, Expert Oracle Database Architecture: Oracle Database 9i, 10g, and 11g

Origin

  1. Proto-Indo-European*upó
  2. Proto-Italic*supo
  3. Latinsub
  4. Latinsub-
  5. Englishsub-
  6. Englishstring
  7. Englishsubstring

From sub- + string.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Czech podřetězec
  • podřetězecstring of characters
Finnish osajono, osamerkkijono
  • osajonostring of characters
  • osamerkkijonostring of characters
German Teilstring, Teilzeichenkette
  • Teilstringstring of characters
  • Teilzeichenkettestring of characters
Icelandic hlutorð
  • hlutorðstring of characters
Cite this entry
APA

substring. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/substring

MLA

“substring.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/substring. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “substring,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/substring.

Source: substring on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.