1. a subdivision of an electron shell in an atom, characterized by a specific energy level and orbital shape
Usage: chemistry; physics
2. a command-line interface that runs within another shell program
Usage: computing

Examples

• The p subshell can hold up to six electrons.
• Each subshell has a different orbital geometry.
• The d subshell contains five orbitals.
• Students learn about s, p, d, and f subshells in chemistry class.
• The script spawned a subshell to execute the command.
• Variables set in a subshell don’t affect the parent shell.
• The program runs each task in its own subshell.