diff --git a/mesonbuild/build.py b/mesonbuild/build.py
index c73ba3a0e..dd4f7b759 100644
--- a/mesonbuild/build.py
+++ b/mesonbuild/build.py
@@ -817,7 +817,7 @@ You probably should put it in link_with instead.''')
                 # This is a bit of a hack. We do not want Build to know anything
                 # about the interpreter so we can't import it and use isinstance.
                 # This should be reliable enough.
-                if hasattr(dep, 'args_frozen'):
+                if hasattr(dep, 'project_args_frozen') or hasattr('global_args_frozen'):
                     raise InvalidArguments('Tried to use subproject object as a dependency.\n'
                                            'You probably wanted to use a dependency declared in it instead.\n'
                                            'Access it by calling get_variable() on the subproject object.')