From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsubalternsub‧al‧tern /ˈsʌbəltən $ səˈbɒːltərn/ noun [countable] PMAa middle rank in the British army, or someone who has this rank
Examples from the Corpus
subaltern• In 1787 he sailed as a subaltern on a merchantman that was wrecked.• Oriental culture is a subaltern culture, conceived through the very process of its subjugation and subordination to the universal culture.• He was put under arrest, and his subaltern brought the command out of town.• Moreover, it has been reworked within the cultural forms and practices of a whole variety of subaltern groups.• Off-duty, the subalterns took to their jeeps and accelerated into the desert to shoot antelope.• Sometimes the derivative models achieved success through a particular artist holding on to their subaltern guitar long after they'd made it.• The street had been transformed from the one he had known as a young subaltern. 