سبحانه
Subḥānahu
Glory be to Him: an invocation that Muslims say or write whenever God is mentioned.
What it means
Subḥānahu is a form of subḥāna, “glory be”, with the pronoun “Him”. Muslims add it after the name of God, in the form Allāh subḥānahu, to declare Him free of every fault and above every comparison. The Quran has the word several times: “Glory be to Him! He is exalted above what they associate with Him” (10:18). It is usually followed by wa taʿālā, “and may He be exalted”. Faruqi lists the single word in his section on words and the longer pair among the expressions. The practice keeps the believer aware that God has no likeness, so that His mention always carries an act of respect.
Often misunderstood as
English writers often replace it with a bare abbreviation, which hides the fact that it is a short prayer of exaltation.
What the sources say
The Quran uses the form both in God’s own voice and in the speech of prophets and angels, as in the angels’ reply, “Glory be to You, we have no knowledge except what You taught us” (2:32). Scholars regard it as an act of remembrance that gains reward.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 34, listed as SUBḤĀNAHU. The definition is restated here.