a.
1. [SUB- 20 c.] Nearly linear (Bot. and Zool.: see LINEAR a. 4 b).
1777. S. Robson, Brit. Flora, 89. Leaves sublinear.
1852. Dana, Crust., II. 887. The hand of the first pair of legs is sublinear.
1888. Amer. Nat., XXII. 1017. Suture sublinear above and slightly channeled below.
2. [SUB- 1 a.] Placed below a written or printed line.
Cf. Sublineation s.v. SUB- 2.
1868. Visct. Strangford, Sel. (1869), II. 254. The strange hooks or sub-linear commas by which the Poles denote certain nasal sounds in their language.
1909. Bible in World, Aug., 239/2. There are two chief systems of punctuation known, sublinear and superlinear. Ibid. All ordinary Hebrew manuscripts are vocalised or pointed with the sublinear vowel signs.