subcharacter

English

Etymology

From sub- +‎ character.

Noun

subcharacter (plural subcharacters)

1. A lesser or secondary character in fiction.
   • 2007, R. Barton Palmer, Twentieth-Century American Fiction on Screen, page 65:

     The characters, the subcharacters, the mature but tragic love story, all appealed to me. And the technique of telling the stories with a narrator who would function like a Greek chorus occurred to me in what I thought was a brilliant flash.

2. Any of the components making up a complex text character.
   • 1990, Allen Kent, James G. Williams, Encyclopedia of Microcomputers, volume 6:

     However, as discussed by Melton, a Chinese character is an ideograph which frequently contains two or more parts called subcharacters. The subcharacters are commonly called radicals in Chinese lexicography.