English

Noun

sublineation ‎(usually uncountable, plural sublineations)

1. A line drawn underneath text; an underline.
2. The act of underlining.
3. (anthropology) A system of forming kinship groups that subdivide a major lineage into subgroups of more closely related individuals.
   • 1961, Louis C. Faron, Mapuche Social Structure, page 97:

     At that time, before sublineation had become significant for the local group, banishment would have amounted to dismissing a troublesome individual and his wife and children, rather than an entire sublineage consisting of several families ...

   • 1968, Hugo G. Nutini, San Bernardino Contlá, page 148:

     The larger the lineage, as a general rule, the more segmented it becomes. Sublineation, on the other hand, depends exclusively on the size and "antiquity" of the lineage.

   • 1992, Frederick W. Lange, Wealth and Hierarchy in the Intermediate Area, ISBN 0884021912:

     In reviewing the Mapuche case, I will examine how regionally standardized ceremonial places and elaborate symbols and objects of social status have developed and spread across the social and physical landscape by means of the exchange of women and the sublineation of kinship units linked through participation in public ritual and competition over access to, and regulation of, prime agricultural land and other key resources.

4. (geology) lineation due to the the accumulation of matter in cavities beneath the surface.
   • 1915, Monthly Review - Volumes 2-4, page 33:

     There have been a great many theories as to why the zinc is deposited on and alloyed with the metal treated, but I think that the theory of sublineation is possibly the one most correct.

   • 1992, Anshu K. Sinha, Himalayan orogen and global tectonics, page 290:

     These uplands are still growing, and comparatively young, but their nature points to past sublineation of thick accumulations of sediment, from abundant sources, and therefore active volcanicity

5. (philosophy) A branch of philosophy concerned with understanding of language.
   • 1954, Judith Merril, Selections from Beyond Human Ken, page 182:

     Philosophy interested him, and I found my own education improving with Socrates' as he led me deeper and deeper into mazes of idealism, epistemology and sublineation.