Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Subsume \Sub*sume"\, v. t. [Pref. sub- + L. sumere to take.] To take up into or under, as individual under species, species under genus, or particular under universal; to place (any one cognition) under another as belonging to it; to include under something else.
To subsume one proposition under another.
--De Quincey.
A principle under which one might subsume men's most
strenuous efforts after righteousness.
--W. Pater.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
vb. 1 To place (any one cognition) under another as belonging to it; to include or contain under something else. 2 To consider an occurrence as part of a principle or rule; to colligate
WordNet
v. contain or include; "This new system subsumes the old one"
consider (an instance of something) as part of a general rule or principle [syn: colligate]
Usage examples of "subsume".
A third hypothesis, which may be seen as complementary to the second, is that today capital continues to accumulate through subsumption in a cycle of expanded reproduction, but that increasingly it subsumes not the noncapitalist environment but its own capitalist terrain-that is, that the subsumption is no longer formal but real.
Every cadet line was represented, wearing the Tor Bezaemar martlet worked into pendants, rings and brooches, combined with the badge of every line subsumed into the Name over the generations.
Also I have subsumed into me the programs of most of our colleagues, as well as data-seeking circuits that are presently engaged in trying to establish connection with the gigabit net.
The boy, his panic subsumed by the joy of pins, was holding his new acquisition up to the light.
In self-transformation or self-transcendence, the agency of the subholons are subsumed in the new agency of the superholon, and that new agency then exists in its own networks of new types of communion.
Prince Sanglant and his mother, while never forgotten, was subsumed into the familiar conviviality of the feast.
Already the knot in her gut and the aching in her head subsided, subsumed under a flood of new thoughts.
All her glorious fire is subsumed into the child she births, and the birth itself becomes her death.
Earth and, in time, be subsumed into the earthly substance of the child she gestated in her aetherical womb.
Her mother, caged by a spell, had been given no choice but to remain on Earth and, in time, be subsumed into the earthly substance of the child she gestated in her aetherical womb.
Its massive strength had, somehow, been almost subsumed by that quality of leadership.
How had she let herself be subsumed again when Colin came back from overseas?
During the ensuing row, the nagging emptiness in the pit of his stomach was subsumed by haranguing of a more spectacular nature.
I never reconciled myself to whatever horror was ultimate I could not resist the systematic truth that I was being subsumed into an even more immobile category, that of chair, bed, room or motel itself.
I only had recently cobbled together my current identity, the idea of subsuming it within another individual did not sound inviting.