Subscribe
Pronunciation
- US IPA: /səbˈskraɪb/
- Rhymes: -aɪb
Origin
Latin sub- ("under") + scribere ("to write")
Full definition of subscribe
Verb
- (ergative) To sign up to have copies of a publication, such as a newspaper or a magazine, delivered for a period of time.Would you like to subscribe or subscribe a friend to our new magazine, Lexicography Illustrated?
- To pay for the provision of a service, such as Internet access or a cell phone plan.
- To believe or agree with a theory or an idea.I don’t subscribe to that theory.
- To pay money to be a member of an organization.
- (intransitive) To contribute or promise to contribute money to a common fund.1913: Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography — ... under no circumstances could I ever again be nominated for any public office, as no corporation would subscribe to a campaign fund if I was on the ticket, and that they would subscribe most heavily to beat me;
- (transitive) To promise to give, by writing one's name with the amount.Each man subscribed ten dollars.
- (business and finance) To agree to buy shares in a company.1776: Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations — The capital which had been subscribed to this bank, at two different subscriptions, amounted to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds, of which eighty per cent only was paid up.
- (transitive) To sign; to mark with one's signature as a token of consent or attestation.Parties subscribe a covenant or contract; a man subscribes a bond.Officers subscribe their official acts, and secretaries and clerks subscribe copies or records.
- MilmanAll the bishops subscribed the sentence.
- (archaic) To write (one’s name) at the bottom of a document; to sign (one's name).
- Sir Thomas MoreThey subscribed their names under them.
- (obsolete) To sign away; to yield; to surrender.
- (obsolete) To yield; to admit to being inferior or in the wrong.
- (obsolete, transitive) To declare over one's signature; to publish.
- ShakespeareI will subscribe him a coward.