substratum

The message and the relentless pursuit of perfection it implored served as the substratum of Eric Musselman’s life.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 22, 2023

In a Morlockian twist, the creatures are not extraterrestrials, but intra: Their mole car has drilled up to the surface from their hive deep in the Earth’s substratum.

From Slate ● Oct. 28, 2016

These tube feet help in attachment to the substratum.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015

Professor Lomdak said some Hindus may see tribal animist faiths simply as a substratum of their own.

From New York Times ● Feb. 4, 2014

There was no kindness, no gentleness to this departure; nothing human, but rather a degeneration into some demonic substratum of the body that had waited to lay waste to all the lineaments of grace.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson

"Destructive human activities, like seafloor dredging, which razes entire marine communities, have turned seafloors into structurally simplified habitats with little settlement substrata or localised adult oysters to seed recovery," says Dr McAfee.

From Science Daily ● May 9, 2024

As if building a layer cake, he and his crew applied the substrata, the flashing, the shingles, the roll roofing.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2018

Hughes’s book begins with the prehistoric substrata, delving with curiously gripping detail into layers of settlement archaeologists have only recently unearthed.

From New York Times ● Jan. 4, 2018

Carrie Coon in this scene is a tour-de-force, telling a story that’s either an intensely spiritual pilgrimage to the substrata of existence or a lie that gets her to sleep at night.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 5, 2017

It has wrought upon flitting, sensible phenomena rather than upon abiding substrata of facts.

From The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life by Alger, William Rounseville