He wrote eight dictionaries, four seminal works on dictionary science in Kannada. He also edited over sixty books and published several papers. His work Igo Kannada, is a socio-linguistic dictionary and is used as a reference by linguists and sociologists. He was honored with the Kannada Sahitya Akademi Award and the Pampa Award.
Venkatasubbiah was best known for his work on Kannada dictionary science titled Kannada Nighantu Shastra Parichaya which came out exactly one hundred years after the first Kannada dictionary was authored by the German priest and Indologist Reverend Ferdinand Kittel in 1894.[Notes 1]