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Glite Dictionary
🤝 To hire out 📄 A legal agreement
subcontract

subcontract

1 6.0
An agreement where one company hires another to do part of a contract
  • noun
  • /ˈsʌbˌkɒntrækt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : subcontrato
  • In the early 1990s, the AIDC assisted more than 100 local vendors for machining, forgings, and castings in a subcontract system.

Loral was awarded a second Navy contract and informed Austin that Austin would be awarded only those subcontracts for which it was the lowest bidder.

Examples

  • RBK would be the official subcontractor, and the drywall contractor would, in turn, have a subcontract with RBK.

    Blog text (24)

  • At the end of July 2003, KBR terminated the subcontract with KCPC/Morris for "failure to bring conditions to full contract performance."

    Academic text (2017)

  • A subcontract agreement, in which the home medical equipment company is a supplier, is one option that hospitals frequently choose.

    Academic text (1997)

  • The company operates two facilities in Massachusetts and subcontracts with companies around North America.

    Academic text (2000)

  • America's biggest and best-paying employer is government, either directly or through trillions in subcontracts.

    Blog text (26)

  • There are only contracts and subcontracts to which debarment, suspension, and proposed debarment ineligibility apply.

    Academic text (2017)

  • Most important among these are the leatherware manufacturers producing handbags and suitcases under subcontract for the large leatherware factories in the wider region.

    Academic text (1993)

  • Two months after the decision, a coalition of construction industry groups filed a federal court challenge to a Philadelphia ordinance that established a goal of awarding 15 percent of subcontract work on city projects to minority-owned firms.

    Academic text (1995)

  • Military, congressional, and corporate backing for the B-2 bomber has been assured by spreading subcontracts for it throughout at least 383 congressional districts in 48 states.

    Academic text (1996)

  • The company won several bids, leading to multiple subcontract agreements with local suppliers.

Surface Forms

subcontract singular
subcontracts plural

Morphology

subcontract = contract (transparent) = sub + contract

The meaning is directly produced by the productive prefix 'sub-' ('under' or 'secondary') attached to 'contract', yielding a subordinate contract.

Etymology

The word subcontract comes from the prefix sub- meaning 'under' and the word contract meaning 'agreement'. So a subcontract is an agreement that sits 'under' the main contract and covers part of the work.