The various processes responsible for the energy degradation and eventual thermalization of low-energy subexcitation electrons (< 5 eV) in liquid water are completely delineated for the first time, while previous work assumed the formation of thermalized electrons in the 10(-11)-10(-12) s for liquid water at room temperature. Chief among these are intramolecular vibrational and rotational excitation, dielectric interaction and excitation of intermolecular vibration through H-bond stretching and bending. Cross-sections for these processes are taken from experiments or derived theoretically. Individual time scales are obtained for subexcitational and subvibrational regimes in water at room and higher temperature. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.