# substitution

Pronunciation: US say "sub-stuh-TOO-shuhn" /ˌsʌbstəˈtuʃən/; UK say "sub-sti-TYOO-shuhn" /ˌsʌbstɪˈtjuːʃən/

## Noun

1. The act of putting one thing in the place of another, or the state of having been replaced.
   - Simple: The action of putting one thing in place of another.
   - _The recipe allows the substitution of honey for sugar without changing the texture._
   - _A late substitution brought a fresh player onto the field._
2. A person or thing that takes the place of another; a replacement.
   - Simple: A thing or person used in place of another.
   - _Margarine makes a decent substitution for butter in most recipes._
   - _The understudy served as the substitution when the lead actor fell ill._
3. In chemistry, the process by which one atom or group of atoms in a compound takes the place of another.
   - Simple: A chemical change where one atom or group of atoms is swapped for another in a molecule.
   - _The substitution of a hydroxyl group for a hydrogen atom yields an alcohol._
   - _Chemists tracked the substitution as bromine replaced a carbon-bound hydrogen._
4. The growth of a language's vocabulary through native word-formation that mirrors a foreign term.
   - Simple: Making a new word from a language's own parts to match a word borrowed from another language.
   - _Icelandic often favors substitution, forming native compounds rather than adopting international loanwords._
   - _The new dictionary records each substitution coined to replace a foreign borrowing._

## Origin

This word comes from Middle French substitution, which came from Late Latin substitutio.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/substitution (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).