subvariant

plural subvariants

1. A subsidiary variant; a subtype of something.

   As with the previous Omicron subvariants, it seems likely that the US will follow those regions once again, with or without the new souped-up vaccines.

   2022 July 20, “Opinion: Covid-19 continues to surprise us”, in CNN

   1 more example

   DreamHack began in 1994, in the basement of a nearby elementary school, as a small, local subvariant of what was then called a ‘‘copyparty’’ — pre-broadband occasions to share software or demonstrate flashy off-label uses of early home computers.

   2015 July 16, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Photographs By Franck Bohbot, “Power in Numbers”, in The New York Times