subsidiary

From Middle French subsidiaire, from Latin subsidiarius (“belonging to a reserve”).

• IPA^(key): /sʌbˈsɪ.di.əɹ.i/, /sʌbˈsɪ.dəɹ.i/, /sʌbˈsɪ.d͡ʒəɹ.i/

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subsidiary (comparative more subsidiary, superlative most subsidiary)

1. Auxiliary or supplemental.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, Essays:

     chief ruler and principal head everywhere, not suffragant and subsidiary

   • May 1, 1823, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Difference between stories of dreams and ghosts […]

     They constituted a useful subsidiary testimony of another state of existence.

2. Secondary or subordinate.

   a subsidiary stream

   • 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 5, in Death on the Centre Court:

     By one o'clock the place was choc-a-bloc. […] The restaurant was packed, and the promenade between the two main courts and the subsidiary courts was thronged with healthy-looking youngish people, drawn to the Mecca of tennis from all parts of the country.

3. Of or relating to a subsidy.

   subsidiary payments to an ally

   • 1836-1853, Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope, History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles, 1713-1783

     George the Second relied on his subsidiary treaties.

subsidiary (plural subsidiaries)

1. A company owned by a parent company or a holding company, also called daughter company or sister company.
2. (music) A subordinate theme.
3. One who aids or supplies; an assistant.

• subsidiary on Wikipedia.Wikipedia