a. [f. L. type *subaqueus: see SUB- 1 a. Cf. It. subaqueo.]
1. Existing, formed or constructed under water.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 28. Terrestrial and subaqueous Plants.
a. 1711. Ken, Edmund, Poet. Wks. II. 26. As if sub-aqueous Fires … Had boil’d the Waves.
1774. Pennant, Tour Scot. in 1772, 33. In some places are vast subaqueous precipices. Ibid. (1776), Brit. Zool., I. 345. For the purpose of plunging into their subaqueous winter quarters.
1829. Landor, Imag. Conv., Wks. 1853, I. 573/1. That dark colour which subaqueous weeds are often of.
1855. Kingsley, Westw. Ho! xxxii. Tarn David, one of those strange subaqueous pebble-dykes.
1862. Tounsend, Man. of Dates, s.v. Submarine telegraph, In 1848 successful subaqueous telegraphs were laid across the Rhine.
1903. F. W. H. Myers, Hum. Pers., I. 77. There is a rush upwards as of a subaqueous spring.
b. Performed or taking place under water; adapted for use under water.
1774. A. Campbell, Lexiphanes (ed. 4), 25. I risqued a subaqueous voyage.
1839. United Service Jrnl., June, 189. Subterraneous or subaqueous explosions.
1847. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Ser. I. Grey Dolphin. As though the River god and Neptune were amusing themselves with a game of subaqueous battledore.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., Sub-aqueous Helmet, a diver’s head-dress, supplied with air by pump from above.
c. jocular. That constructs works under water.
1844. Thackeray, Contrib. to Punch, Wks. 1898, VI. 83. It weds the tunnel of the subaqueous Brunel with the mystic edifice of Cheops.
2. Below the sea-level. nonce-use.
1724. Ramsay, Health, 397. Ye Dutch … You scarce dare sleep in your subaqueous bowers.
3. Reflected as if in depths of water.
1798. W. Mavor, Brit. Tourists, V. 260. The shelving hills, which, with their subaqueous images, were of a faint, grape-like hue.
1843. Wordsw., Prose Wks. (1876), III. 167. These specks of snow reflected in the lake, and so transferred, as it were, to the subaqueous sky.
So Subaquean a. rare–1.
1782. W. Stevenson, Hymn to Deity, 19. Subaquean monsters multiform in size.
