Synonyms for sub

18 synonyms
1 meaning

noun

Most common

bomber submarine torpedo hoagie bottom submissive subcontractor subwoofer

All synonyms

Noun

1. Submarine

submarine, hoagie, hero sandwich US, hero, torpedo, bomber, poor boy, wedge, grinder, zep US

Other

subwoofer, bottom, stand-in, submissive, subcontractor, fill-in, procedure, pigboat slang dated

Related words

Word family: subspace
Phrases: sub rosa pizza sub blood sub pizza sub sandwich stone sub sub clover sub out
Is a kind of: sandwich food meal

Forms

Plural: subs → submarines, hoagies, heroes, torpedoes…

Choose the right word

Sub or Gero?

sub, under, and gero, bring) brings something before the mind less directly than by formal or explicit statement, as by a partial statement, an incidental allusion, an illustration, a question, or the like.

J. C. Fernald, English Synonyms and Antonyms (1914)

Example sentences

bomber Tom seems to be unwilling to be a suicide bomber.
submarine Where can we get boarding passes for the submarine?
torpedo A torpedo sunk the ship Tom's grandfather was on.
bottom There must be something at the bottom of all this.
submissive Men are subconsciously attracted to submissive women.

Popularity over time

Word	1850 → 2019	Trend
sub		falling
bomber		steady
submarine		falling
torpedo		steady
hoagie		rising
bottom		steady

Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.

By length

3 letters: zep
4 letters: hero²
5 letters: wedge¹
6 letters: bottom², bomber², hoagie²
7 letters: torpedo³, grinder², pigboat
9 letters: procedure³, submarine³, subwoofer
10 letters: submissive³
13 letters: subcontractor⁴

The small number after each word is its number of syllables (hero² = 2 syllables).