substitute

1. 1.

   put in the place of another; switch seemingly equivalent items

   “the con artist replaced the original with a fake Rembrandt”

   “substitute regular milk for fat-free milk”

   “synonyms can be interchanged without a changing the context's meaning”

   Synonymsreplaceinterchangeexchange

   Broaderchange

   Narrowershiftreducetruncateretoolsubrogate
2. 2.

   be a substitute

   “The young teacher had to substitute for the sick colleague”

   “The skim milk substitutes for cream--we are on a strict diet”

   Synonymssubstand infill in

   Broaderexchange
3. 3.

   act as a substitute

   “She stood in for the soprano who suffered from a cold”

   Synonymsdeputizedeputisestep in

   Broadersupplant

   Narrowercover

1. 1.

   capable of substituting in any of several positions on a team

   “a utility infielder”

   Synonymsutility

   Similarsecondary
2. 2.

   serving or used in place of another

   “an alternative plan”

   Synonymsalternatealternative

   Similarsecondary
3. 3.

   artificial and inferior

   “ersatz coffee”

   “substitute coffee”

   Synonymsersatz

   Similarartificial

Other forms of substitute

plural

substitutes·

past tense

substituted·

present participle

substituting·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about substitute

What does substitute mean?

substitute means "a person or thing that takes or can take the place of another". That is the primary sense; the word has 9 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in substitute?

substitute has 3 syllables: sub-sti-tute. The stress falls on "sub". In IPA it is /ˈsʌbstəˌtut/.

What is another word for substitute?

Close synonyms include replacement, reserve, second-stringer, stand-in, relief. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is substitute a common word?

substitute is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with substitute?

7 words rhyme with substitute. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.