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Subtraction   /səbtrˈækʃən/   Listen
Subtraction

noun
1.
An arithmetic operation in which the difference between two numbers is calculated.  Synonym: minus.  "Four minus three equals one"
2.
The act of subtracting (removing a part from the whole).  Synonym: deduction.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Subtraction" Quotes from Famous Books



... very generous with the subtraction. She was in a generous mood, wanting to give everybody the benefit of the doubt that, with a good deal of a struggle, she had managed to give Georgia. Of course the vindicating of the little freshman was quite the happiest result of the whole ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... improve their material position? You say schools, education, will give them fresh wants. So much the worse, since they won't be capable of satisfying them. And in what way a knowledge of addition and subtraction and the catechism is going to improve their material condition, I never could make out. The day before yesterday, I met a peasant woman in the evening with a little baby, and asked her where she was going. She said she was going to the wise woman; her boy had screaming fits, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... existed in the minds of both Gerald and Sophia the remarkable notion that twelve thousand pounds represented the infinity of wealth, that this sum possessed special magical properties which rendered it insensible to the process of subtraction. It seemed impossible that twelve thousand pounds, while continually getting less, could ultimately quite disappear. The notion lived longer in the mind of Gerald than in that of Sophia; for Gerald would never look at a disturbing fact, whereas Sophia's gaze was morbidly fascinated ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... distributing them among children or by sales in smaller units. Much of the land obtained by the first two generations on the Eastern Shore was broken up into small holdings by the third. As stated by Professor Ames, "It is the subtraction and division of acres, with only occasionally any marked addition, that seems to be the chief development in land tenure during the last ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.

... the Red Queen, sniffing, "try another subtraction sum! Take a Grand Old Leader from a 'Party' of discredited 'Items,' ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various

... or "rots out," is meant the subtraction of the bad eggs from the number to be paid for. Buying on a candled or graded basis, usually not only means rots cut, but that a variation of the price is made for two or more grades of ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings

... red sifts it by quenching the green, and the green sifts it by quenching the red, both exhibiting the residual colour. The process through which natural bodies acquire their colours is therefore a negative one. The colours are produced by subtraction, not by addition. This red glass is red because it destroys all the more refrangible rays of the spectrum. This blue liquid is blue because it destroys all the less refrangible rays. Both together are opaque because the light transmitted by the one is quenched by the other. ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... Taker or one of his Chief Officers, who was present, and saw the said Papers and Writings Delivered up, or otherwise found on board at the time of the Capture, making Oath, That the said Papers and Writings are brought and Delivered in as they were received or taken, without any Fraud, Addition, Subtraction ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... keep the score of any rubber under the old method while the same rubber is being scored by some one familiar with the advantages of the new. The result is sure to be most convincing. Under the new method, the short sums in addition or subtraction are mentally computed, during the deal of the cards, etc. This occupies waste time only, and at the end of the rubber, leaves a very simple, frequently nothing ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... to No. 1, I ask whether, in the nature of the mind, illustration and explanation must not of necessity proceed from the lower to the higher? or whether a boy is to be taught his addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, by the highest branches of algebraic analysis? Is there any better way of systematic teaching, than that of illustrating each new step, or having each new step illustrated to him by ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... against subtraction, detraction, and all the wrongs inventors endure: to wit, a choleric temper, a keen sense of humour, and a good wife. He storms and rages at his detracting pupils; but ends with roars of laughter at their impudence. I am told ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... development of mathematics in the early historical period suggests that primeval man had attained a not inconsiderable knowledge of numbers. The humdrum vocation of looking after a numerous progeny must have taught the mother the rudiments of addition and subtraction; and the elements of multiplication and division are implied in the capacity to carry on even the rudest form of barter, such as the various tribes must have practised ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... sustain a weight which he had calculated beforehand to be equal to that of a definite column of water, or when Stahl, at a later period, converted metals into lime, and reconverted lime into metal, by the addition and subtraction of certain elements; [Footnote: I do not here follow with exactness the history of the experimental method, of which, indeed, the first steps are involved in some obscurity.] a light broke upon all natural ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... collection of two was not then considered a sure prognostic of rebellion, and spied out vigilantly by tutoric eyes. A group of three was not reckoned a gross outrage of the college peace, and punished severely by the subtraction of some dozens from the numerical rank of the unfortunate youth engaged in so high a misdemeanor. A congregation of four was not esteemed an open, avowed contempt of the laws of decency and propriety, prophesying ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... You giving out that I can keep no knowledge in mind and no learning, when I should sit on the chapel roof to have enough of slates for all I can cast up of sums! Multiplication, Addition, subtraction, and the rule ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory

... them up to the cabin, and requested Jackson would teach me to count. This he did, until he came to a thousand, which he said was sufficient. For many days I continued to count up to a hundred, until I was quite perfect, and then Jackson taught me addition and subtraction to a certain degree, by making me add and take away from the shells, and count the accumulation, or the remainder. At last, I could remember what I had gained by manipulation, if I may use the term; but further ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... and subtraction had proceeded yet further. Only Bill was present when Arabella broke out ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... chain breaks, and the progress in numbering can go no further. So that to reckon right, it is required, (1) That the mind distinguish carefully two ideas, which are different one from another only by the addition or subtraction of ONE unit: (2) That it retain in memory the names or marks of the several combinations, from an unit to that number; and that not confusedly, and at random, but in that exact order that the numbers follow one another. In either of which, if it trips, the whole ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... life may be very sensibly affected by human action. I never heard anybody doubt that the evil may be thus increased, or diminished; and it would seem to follow that good must be similarly susceptible of addition or subtraction. Finally, to my knowledge, nobody professes to doubt that, so far forth as we possess a power of bettering things, it is our paramount duty to use it and to train all our intellect and energy to this supreme service of ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... contemptuously misinterpret them. The legend that twins may share a single soul has always seemed to me grotesque and unpoetic nonsense, a cruel and unnecessary notion too: a man is sufficiently imperfect without suffering this further subtraction from his potentialities. And yet it is true, in our own case, that you have exclusive monopoly of the ethereal qualities, while to me are given chiefly the physical attributes of the vigorous and healthy male—the animal: my six feet three, my muscular system, my inartistic ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood

... make us wise unto salvation and thoroughly furnished unto all good works; but we are not at liberty to adulterate these records either by addition or subtraction. If they should be preserved exactly as they issued from the pen of inspiration, it is clear that the visible ordinances in which they are epitomized should also be maintained in their integrity. He who tampers with a divinely-instituted symbol is obviously to some ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... on his furrowed face, a face like an ancient weather-worn statue on whose countenance grief has petrified—has summed up the character of Disraeli as no other man ever has or can. I will not rob the reader by quoting from "The Primrose Sphinx"—that gem of letters must ever stand together without subtraction of a word. It belongs to the realm of the lapidary, and its facets can not be transferred. Yet when Mr. Zangwill refers to the Mephistophelian curl of Lord Beaconsfield's lip, the word is used advisedly. No character in history so stands for the legendary ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... and finally the silver. Or, if that is too much trouble, reflect that on this modest couch recline bank-notes for three thousand one hundred and twenty pounds, gold sovereigns to the number of three hundred and forty-two, whence by an easy subtraction sum we obtain a remainder of silver, in value ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... no picture of the imagination. It is a common and sober reality. It is what we see almost every day of our lives; and we live in the midst of such scenes and such events. With the addition or subtraction of a few circumstances, it is the case of every one of the common drunkards around us. They have not completed the drama—they are alive—but they are going to death with rapid strides, as their predecessors have already gone. Another company of immortal minds are coming on to fill their ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... where friction is abolished, where perpetual motion is no longer impossible; where two bodies may occupy the same space at the same time; where collisions and disruptions take place without loss of energy; where subtraction often means more—as when the poison of a substance is rendered more virulent by the removal of one or more atoms of one of the elements; and where addition often means less—as when three parts of the gases of oxygen and ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... the power of Mind to say that addition [15] is not subtraction in mathematics? The Science of Mind reveals the impossibility of two individual sleepers, in different phases of thought, communicating, even if touch- ing each other corporeally; or for one who sleeps to ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... four first sums—Addition, Multiplication, Division, and Subtraction;" and the learned ironmonger pointed to a pile of some hundreds of the ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker

... affection, the force of generous impulse, were qualities that did not come into Mr. Sheldon's calculations upon this subject. His addition and subtraction, division and multiplication, were all based on ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... and gratuitous patrimony of consumers, of society, of mankind. Countries, therefore, which do not enjoy these advantages, must gain by commerce with those which do; because the exchanges of commerce are between labor and labor, subtraction being made of all the natural advantages which are combined with these labors; and it is evidently the most favored countries which can incorporate into a given labor the largest proportion of these ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... seer, a hearer, a thinker. More than this I will not inflict on you to-day; but you see that without deviating a finger's breadth from the straight path of reason, that is from correct and honest addition and subtraction, we finally come to the soul-phantom and to the idea of God, which you look upon with such blood-thirstiness. I have indicated to you, with only a few strokes, the historical course of human knowledge. There still remains much to fill in, which must be gained from ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller

... are by no means confined to its immediate subjects, or the individuals on whom it is practised. Vessels suffer from the weakening of their crews, and voyages are often delayed, and not unfrequently broken up, by subtraction from the number of necessary hands by impressment. And what is of still greater and more general moment, the fear of impressment has been found to create great difficulty in obtaining sailors for the American merchant service in times ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... does understand is that if Chicago be not drained immediately, the amiable cholera may be expected to put in an early appearance. Mr. Superintendent RAUCH prints an aggravating table to show, by multiplication, addition, subtraction, division, and the rule of three, that if you don't drain you will have cholera, while if you do drain you will escape it. Under the circumstances, we should advise Chicago ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various

... us is a certain subtraction sum. We have to take from life one of its strongest present elements; and see as well as we can what will then be the remainder. An exact answer we shall, of course, not expect; but we can arrive at an ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... 'tennyrate Philander come up a very strong He Aunty. And he felt that the Creation Searchers ort to go to New York that day to assist the Aunties in sneerin' at the marchers, writin' up the parade, and helpin' count 'em. Philander wuz always good at figures, specially at subtraction, and he and his Step Ma thought he ort to be there ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley

... Coleridge find a mystery if he wished? Dryden more wisely remarked that Milton became tedious when he entered upon a "track of Scripture." [21] Nor is it surprising that such is the case. The style of many parts of Scripture is such that it will not bear addition or subtraction. A word less or an idea more, and the effect upon the mind is the same no longer. Nothing can be more tiresome than a sermonic amplification of such passages. It is almost too much when, as from the pulpit, a paraphrastic commentary is prepared for our spiritual improvement. ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... (1) tract, tractor, intractable, abstracted, retract, protract, detract, distract, attractive, contractor, trace, trail, train, trait, portray, retreat; (2) traction, tractate, distraught, extraction, subtraction. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... west at six knots per hour, for the intervening four hours her latitude would not change. But if she were sailing due south, her latitude would change to the tune of twenty-four miles. In which case a simple addition or subtraction would convert the twelve o'clock latitude into eight o'clock latitude. But suppose the Snark were sailing southwest. Then the traverse ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... most schools), not by thinking the matter out, but by following certain by-rules given him by his teacher, which were based on a careful study of the wording of the questions set by the inspector, and which held good as long as that wording remained unchanged. For example, if a subtraction sum was to be dictated to "Standard II," the child was taught that the number which was given out first was to be placed in the upper line, and that the number which came next was to be subtracted from this. ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... recurrence in the celestial appearances was ascertained empirically before much progress had been made in geometry; but astronomy could no more be a science until geometry was a highly advanced one, than the rule of three could have been practised before addition and subtraction. The truths of the simpler sciences are a part of the laws to which the phaenomena of the more complex sciences conform: and are not only a necessary element in their explanation, but must be so well understood as to be traceable through ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill



Words linked to "Subtraction" :   reduction, step-down, decrease, bite, subtract, withholding, addition, minus, arithmetic operation, diminution, deduction



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