Pl. substrata; also substratums. [mod.L., pa. pple. neut. sing. of L. substernĕre to spread underneath, f. sub- SUB- 2 + sternĕre to lay down, strew.]
1. Metaph. That which is regarded as supporting attributes or accidents; the substance in which qualities inhere.
1653. T. Whitfield, Treat. Sinf. Men, iv. 11. The Substratum or subject of sin, namely, the naturall motion or action whereto sin cleaves, is such a thing without which sin could not be.
a. 1676. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. i. 22. The Substance or the Substratum of those Accidents of things which are derived to us by our Sense.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., I. iv. § 18. Something … which we take to be the substratum, or support, of those Idea’s we do know.
1740. Cheyne, Regimen, 34. Material Substance is the Substratum of Extension, Impenetrability, Passivity and Figure.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit. (1907), I. 88. Different modes, or degrees in perfection, of a common substratum.
1838. [F. Haywood], trans. Kant’s Crit. Pure Reason, 176. Substances (in the phenomenon) are the substrata of all determinations of time.
1874. Sidgwick, Meth. Ethics, I. ix. 102. Permanent substrata or Noumena.
2. That which underlies, or serves as the basis or foundation of, an immaterial thing, condition or activity; the basis on which an immaterial ‘structure’ is raised.
1631. J. Burges, Answ. Rejoined, Manud. 32. It is their institution which imprints their signification, and not simply their owne similitude, which is but the substratum.
a. 1672. Wilkins, Nat. Relig., I. xiv. (1675), 214. That basis or substratum upon which the Law is founded.
1798. J. Barry, Lett. to Dilettanti Soc., 65. As a totality which form the very substratuum and essence of my Lectures to the Students of the Academy.
1816. Coleridge, Lay Serm. (Bohn), 315. It is … the realizing principle, the spiritual substratum of the whole complex body of truths.
1859. Helps, Friends in C., Ser. II. II. x. 244. All Aristotle’s views were based upon a substratum of slavery.
1860. Hook, Lives Abps., I. 45. The simple patriarchal faith … was never lost, and when the idolatrous superstitions were removed there still remained a substratum of truth.
1862. J. M. Ludlow, Hist. U.S., 4. There are in several places substrata of foreign blood, as the Dutch in New York and New Jersey, the Swedes in New Jersey and Delaware.
1870. J. H. Newman, Gram. Assent, II. vii. 213. What in some minds seems like … a faith founded on a perilous substratum of doubt.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 321. The stories themselves doubtless rest on a substratum of fact.
1900. W. L. Courtney, Idea of Tragedy, 58. All the time in Henry Vth’s character there was a substratum of common sense, of self-control.
3. That upon which a material thing is ‘built up’ or from which it is created; the subject-matter or matter operated upon.
a. 1676. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., 345. He used the Matter which he had created to be the substratum of the Corporeal Natures, even of Man himself.
1708. Brit. Apollo, No. 2. 2/1. That Hail and Snow are produc’d out of the same Substratum or matter.
1799. Med. Jrnl., I. 270. From a combination of the basis of vital air, with the substratum of carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus, arise the carbonic, sulphuric, and phosphoric acids.
c. 1825. T. Chalmers, in Mem. (1851), III. 65, note. With our Scottish peasantry, the substratum of the meal is either potatoes or bread.
1837. Quain, Elem. Anat. (ed. 4), 9. The skeleton … constitutes the substratum, to which the other parts are, as it were, applied.
1875. Stewart & Tait, Unseen Univ., vii. § 213. 167. The atoms which form the material substratum of the present universe.
1878. Bell, trans. Gegenbaur’s Comp. Anat., 13. In the living body we observe a number of activities of its material substratum, by which the series of phænomena spoken of as life are conditioned.
4. An under-layer of any material substance.
1730. Bailey (fol.), Substratum,… any Layer of Earth or any other Thing that lies under another.
1764. Bush, Hiber. Cur. (1769), 79. I do not at all suppose that even the very first and original growth of this heath … in any sense sprang from the fallen wood, its neighbouring substratum.
1846. R. Ritchie, Railways, 10. Substrata of small stones, several feet in thickness.
1859. Dickens, T. Two Cities, I. ii. A loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on a substratum of cutlass.
1878. Abney, Photogr., xiv. 92. When it is required to cover the entire plate with either of these substrata, it is usual to wet the plate with distilled water.
1892. Photogr. Ann., 83. Coat the plates with an albumen substratum.
b. An under-layer of soil or earthy matter.
1730. [see above].
1807. J. Jones, trans. Bugge’s Trav. Fr. Rep., i. 3. Where the substratum is gravel or sand.
1813. Bakewell, Introd. Geol., 197. A proper knowledge of the quality of the sub-soil and the position of the sub-strata is necessary.
1824. G. Chalmers, Caledonia, III. 596. Even the more level, and more genial soils are cold, from their substratums.
1872. A. C. Ramsay, Phys. Geog. (ed. 3), xvii. 268. The Vale or Clwyd, in Denbighshire—the substratum of which consists of New Red Sandstone.
c. Bot. The matter upon which a fungus or other plant grows.
1876. trans. Wagner’s Gen. Pathol., 101. In the substratum the process of decomposition differs with the fungus present.
1882. Vines, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 307. Fungi grow exclusively upon organic substrata.
d. In immaterial sense.
1855. [J. D. Burn], Autobiog. Beggar Boy (1859), 2. Such as have passed through the various substrata of civilized society.
1873. Curwen, Hist. Booksellers, 363. As the business is conducted by house to house visitation, a substratum of the public is reached which [etc.].
1876. J. Grant, Burgh Sch. Scot., II. xi. 308. Children belonging to the substratum of society.
