Venkatasubbiah was born on 23 August 1913 at Ganjam village, Srirangapatna, in Mandya district. His father Ganjam Thimmanniah was a renowned Kannada and Sanskrit scholar. He was instrumental in inspiring in Venkatasubbiah a love for old Kannada. His primary schooling was spread out across the towns of Bannur and Madhugiri in the south Indian state of Karnataka. The second child in a family of eight, Venkatasubbiah had to follow his father from town to town as he frequently kept getting transferred in his Government job. By the early 1930s, Venkatasubbiah's family relocated to city of Mysore. Here Venkatasubbiah joined Yuvaraja college at Mysore for his intermediate course where he came under the influence of K. V. Puttappa (Kuvempu). Venkatasubbiah then joined the Maharaja College at Mysore to pursue his Bachelor of Arts (Honors) degree. His chosen subjects included Ancient History, Sanskrit and old Kannada among others. Here he came under the tutelage of T. S. Venkannaiah who taught Pampa Bharata, D. L. Narasimachar who taught Editorial Science, T. N. Srikantaiah who taught Kavyamimamse and S. Srikanta Sastri who taught Karnataka History. Venkatasubbiah completed his M. A. between 1936–38 and was recipient of the University Gold Medal.

Venkatasubbiah has compiled more than 10 dictionaries, including an eight-volume Kannada-Kannada Nighantu (Dictionary). This dictionary has also been translated to the Braille language by the Braille Transcription Center of the Canara Bank Relief and Welfare Society. He has been writing the column, Igo Kannada for over a decade in the Kannada daily Prajavani. The articles published in Igo Kannada have been compiled into a book in four volumes. It is a social dictionary which encompasses an eclectic mix of Kannada phrases, usages, idioms and phrases. He has also authored a dictionary entitled Klishtapada Kosha (a dictionary of complex Kannada words) which was released to mark the Suvarna Karnataka (Silver Jubilee of the formation of Karnataka). It is the first of its kind in Kannada language which covers different language specifications such as derivation, punctuation, phoneme and morphological patterns of Kannada language as the language has evolved over the centuries.

Venkatasubbaiah is remembered 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. Between 1964 - 1969, while at the Kannada Sahitya Parishat (Kannada Literary Center), he had the distinction of being its youngest president. As President, he was instrumental in increasing the society's financial grants from the Government. He was chief editor of the 'Kannada - Kannada Dictionary' project. He was involved in Kannada Encyclopaedia Project, Sahitya Sammelana (Literary Fest) at Karwar and Shravanabelagola and as the Editor of Kannada Sahitya Parishat’s monthly magazine Kannada Nudi. He has served as the vice-president of the Lexicographical Association of India for 17 years. In 1998, he was appointed as an advisory to the multilingual dictionary project of the Institute of Asian Studies, Chennai, which comprises Japanese, Kannada, English and Tamil. He was also appointed as a consultative committee member in the Telugu lexicon project initiated by the Telugu Academy of the Government of Andhra Pradesh. He was the First President of Bidar District 1st Kannada Sahitya Sammelana (Kannada Literary Festival) held in the year 1974. He was honored with the Presidency of 77th Akhila Bharata Kannada Sahitya Sammelana (All India Kannada Literary Meet) held at Bangalore on 2011. He was honored with Padma Shri by the President of India in the year 2017.