A specialization of a concept, sharing all the definitional attributes of that concept, but with at least one additional distinguishing feature¹ .

Notes

• Subtypes are transitive, that is if A is a subtype of B and B is a subtype of C, then A is also a subtype of C.
• The term subtype is synonymous with subtype descendant. However, it may be helpful to use the term subtype descendant to emphasize inclusion of all subtypes not just subtype children.

Example

• 87628006 | Bacterial infectious disease (disorder)|  is a subtype of 40733004 | Infectious disease (disorder)| . 
• 10001005 | Bacterial sepsis (disorder)|  and  197171003 | Bacterial peritonitis (disorder)|  are subtypes of 87628006 | Bacterial infectious disease (disorder)|  (and thus also subtypes of 40733004 | Infectious disease (disorder)| ). 

Disambiguation

Not to be confused with:

• The term subtype is sometimes used incorrectly to refer only to concepts that are directly related to a parent concept via a single | is a|  relationship. The correct term for a directly related subtype concept is subtype child.

Related Links

• Subtype 
• Supertype