Origin: Latin suffix -tion
Subscription has 5 different meanings across 1 category:
a payment for consecutive issues of a newspaper or magazine for a given period of time
"After three months without renewing his subscription, he finally missed out on receiving that week's copy of the magazine."
agreement expressed by (or as if expressed by) signing your name
"The club required a formal subscription to join, so I signed my name on the guest register to officially agree to their rules."
a pledged contribution
"The nonprofit relied entirely on last-minute subscription pledges to cover their emergency relief efforts."
the act of signing your name; writing your signature (as on a document)
"the deed was attested by the subscription of his signature"
Access to a resource for a period of time, generally for payment.
"After three months without internet service, I finally renewed my subscription so I could stream movies again."
In plain English: A subscription is when you pay money regularly to keep using something like a service or magazine.
"I canceled my magazine subscription because I wasn't reading it anymore."
Usage: A subscription grants ongoing access to a service or content in exchange for regular payments rather than a one-time fee. Use this term when referring to recurring arrangements like magazine deliveries or streaming memberships instead of single purchases.
The word subscription comes from the Latin term subscriptio, which originally referred to a note written underneath a document. It entered English with this same meaning of writing something below another text.