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subbasement

subbasement

3 6.6
A level below the main basement in a building often used for storage or equipment
  • noun
  • /ˈsʌbˌbeɪsmənt/
translation icon : subsótano
  • On that particular morning, I was in the subbasement of the old Los Angeles Hall of Records, in the coroner's vault, looking at file folders containing the records of certified deaths.
  • subbasement floor
  • the first subbasement

Examples

  • In the same subbasement in Tel Aviv that housed the forgery department, there is another series of rooms dedicated to storing details of a truly amazing number of companies, real and fictional.

    Fiction book (1994)
  • But they just covered up the subbasement, so... it's all still there under the park.

  • So they moved it down here to a subbasement.

  • And you gotta pop a hole in the floor to get to the subbasement.

  • You can get to the subbasement through this electrical conduit in the floor here.

  • He's being held in subbasement "D" of the federal courthouse.

  • The loads were put into trains of small cars that then dove below the streets, delivering coal to subbasements of one building after another.

    Academic text (1994)
  • She opened the door to the stairwell and began the descent to the first subbasement and the Director's office.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • Hammond and Lockwood built a custom lab in the subbasement, extracted the first DNA from amber right beneath our feet.

  • The holding room was located three levels below the gaming floor, in the casino's deepest subbasement.

Synonyms

sublevel
vssubbasement
8 5.4

A level below another in a building or mine

is specifically the level below the main basement
undercroft
vssubbasement
  • Archaic
1 8.4

A room under a building used to store food or drink

is a full floor below the main basement rather than a single room

How Deep

subbasement
3 6.6
basement
732 1.0
cellar
149 1.6
crawl space
  • Specialized
15 5.7

Surface Forms

subbasement singular
subbasements plural

Morphology

subbasement = basement (transparent) = sub + basement + sub

Meaning is directly derived from 'sub' (under/below) + the familiar noun 'basement' = a level below the basement.

Etymology

Subbasement joins sub- meaning 'under' and basement, the lowest main floor of a building, so a subbasement is a level 'under' the basement.