submarine

Pluralsubmarines

Formssubmarines, submarining, submarined

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A boat that can travel beneath the surface of the water.

   The submarine dived to escape the warship passing overhead.

   The crew spent six weeks aboard the submarine without seeing daylight.

   Note

   Naval usage calls a submarine a boat rather than a ship, however large it is, and it dives and surfaces rather than sinking and rising. In everyday talk the word is often shortened to sub, and a crew can spend weeks aboard one without seeing daylight.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A sandwich made in a long loaf of bread, with the filling laid along its length.

   The deli's Italian submarine comes stacked with salami, ham, and provolone.

   She cut the three-foot submarine into slices so everyone at the party got a piece.

   Similarhoagie, hero, grinder

3. 3
   adjective

   Located underwater, relating to what is underwater, or made for use there, especially beneath the sea.

   Engineers designed a submarine pipeline to carry gas across the strait.

   Sonar revealed a deep submarine canyon cutting across the continental shelf.

   Similarunderwater, undersea, subsea

   Note

   The word is sub-, under, joined to marine, of the sea, and this adjective keeps that literal meaning. It overlaps with submerged only where something simply lies underwater; submarine also covers what is built to work there, such as a pipeline across a strait, and it takes no degrees. In Morshead's Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908), sea-nymphs arrive from the submarine palace of their father Oceanus.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To attack with a torpedo, or to destroy something with a sudden sneak attack.

   Economists feared that higher interest rates would submarine the recovery.

   A leaked memo submarined the senator's campaign a week before the vote.

   Similartorpedo, sabotage, scupper, derail, wreck

   Note

   Sudden ruin delivered from below the surface is the picture, and the figurative use is the lively one: a plan, a campaign or an economy can be submarined by a blow nobody saw coming. In 2007 the Associated Press wrote of the Fed trying to ward off inflation without submarining the economy. The verb is regular, always takes an object, and stands in for torpedo in exactly the same way.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   In baseball, a pitch delivered with an underhand motion.

   He finished the inning with a sidearm fastball and a baffling submarine.

   Batters see so few submarines that the pitch keeps them guessing all game.

   Note

   Its rarity is much of its value: hitters seldom see a ball arrive from so low an angle, so a submarine mixed in with sidearm fastballs keeps them guessing all game. As a noun it counts like any other pitch name, one submarine or a handful of submarines, while the pitcher who throws it is described with the adjective.

6. 6
   adjective

   Of a baseball pitch, thrown with the hand kept lower than the elbow.

   The club signed a submarine pitcher to confuse its rivals' left-handed hitters.

   His submarine delivery starts with his knuckles nearly scraping the mound.

   Similarunderhand

   Oppositeoverhand

   Note

   In baseball talk the adjective describes the pitcher and the whole motion as readily as a single pitch. John McCollister's Tales from the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates (2005) calls Kent Tekulve a submarine pitcher, his throws seeming to come right out of the rubber slab on the mound. Thrown on its own, the pitch is simply a submarine.

7. 7
   verbintransitive

   In a crash or sudden stop, to slide forward under one's seat belt instead of being held back by it.

   Reclined passengers are more likely to submarine in a head-on collision.

   In the early tests, the crash dummies submarined beneath the lap belt.

   Note

   A crash-safety term for what happens when the hips slide forward under the lap belt, so the belt ends up across the soft belly and the danger becomes severe internal injury. That is why safety advice keeps the seatback upright while driving: a reclined occupant is the one likely to submarine. Engineers say it of crash dummies in testing too.

8. 8
   adjective

   Hidden from view or not disclosed to others.

   When the submarine patent finally surfaced, every maker of the device suddenly owed royalties.

   New filing rules were meant to stop submarine patents from staying secret for decades.

   Similarhidden, secret, concealed

   Note

   A figurative stretch of the underwater meaning: something submarine runs below the surface of public knowledge. The phrase to know is submarine patent, a patent that stays out of sight while an industry builds on the idea, then surfaces and leaves every maker of the device owing royalties.

9. 9
   verbfigurativelyintransitive

   To sink or submerge oneself, whether physically or figuratively.

   Harbor seals submarine beneath the ice and surface again at breathing holes far from the boat.

   For months after the divorce, she submarined into her work and stopped calling friends.

   Similarsink, dive, submerge

   Oppositesurface, emerge

   Note

   Two worlds use this sense. On the football field it means going low and under an opponent: Homer H. Grantham's World War II memoir has a player who submarined between the big guy's legs to tackle the halfback. Figuratively it means sinking deep into a feeling or an activity, and it takes into, as when Gordon MacDonald submarined into the depths of disillusionment.

10. 10
    verbintransitive

    To serve as a crew member aboard a submarine or help operate one.

    He submarined for twenty years before retiring from the Navy.

    Officers who submarine together in such tight quarters often become lifelong friends.

Showing meanings only. Show all 12