subsidiary.

1. Secondary to, or serving, a larger activity or principal purpose.

2. A company controlled by another company, usually through ownership or voting rights.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• subsidiary aim
• subsidiary question

On the page

The subsidiary question concerned how the policy was communicated, not whether it was effective.

Training was a subsidiary aim of the project, though participants valued it highly.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Relational adjective; ordinary comparative and superlative generally not applicable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: analysis, comparison, evaluation. Disciplines: academic writing, institutional studies. Commonness: moderately common.