subquery
noun, verb
subquery is a noun meaning “A query embedded within a more extensive query, relating only to the data returned by the parent query” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-U-B-Q-U-E-R-Y, and it appears about once in every 39 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of subquery is subqueries.
What does subquery mean?
noun
- 1
A query embedded within a more extensive query, relating only to the data returned by the parent query.
verb
- 1
To run a subquery upon.
We subqueried the customer data to retrieve only customers based in Europe.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of subquery
- subqueries plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- subquerying participle, present
- subqueried participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is subquery?
Subquery appears about once in every 39 million words in written English, the 191,932nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Subquery in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense embedded query:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | sous-requête |
| Portuguese | subconsulta, subquery |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does subquery come from?
From sub- + query.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).