INFERIOR • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Inferior

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/ɪnfˈɪriər/ Listen

adjective

Inferior adj.

1.

Lower in place, rank, value, excellence, etc.; less important or valuable; subordinate; underneath; beneath. "A thousand inferior and particular propositions." "The body, or, as some love to call it, our inferior nature." "Whether they are equal or inferior to my other poems, an author is the most improper judge."

2.

Poor or mediocre; as, an inferior quality of goods.

3.

(Astron.)

(a)

Nearer the sun than the earth is; as, the inferior or interior planets; an inferior conjunction of Mercury or Venus.

(b)

Below the horizon; as, the inferior part of a meridian.

4.

(Bot.)

(a)

Situated below some other organ; said of a calyx when free from the ovary, and therefore below it, or of an ovary with an adherent and therefore inferior calyx.

(b)

On the side of a flower which is next the bract; anterior.

5.

(Min.) Junior or subordinate in rank; as, an inferior officer.

Inferior court (Law), a court subject to the jurisdiction of another court known as the superior court, or higher court.

Inferior letter, Inferior figure (Print.), a small letter or figure standing at the bottom of the line (opposed to superior letter or figure), as in A2, Bn, 2 and n are inferior characters.

Inferior tide, the tide corresponding to the moon's transit of the meridian, when below the horizon.

noun

Inferior n. A person lower in station, rank, intellect, etc., than another. "A great person gets more by obliging his inferior than by disdaining him."

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Etymology of 'Inferior'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Inferior" Quotes from Famous Books

... king's apartments reconciled with himself, and more than ever resolved to withdraw himself from the factious party. It had cost him but little to sacrifice his ambition, for he had none; and his popularity of her own accord had quitted him for other men of inferior rank and station than his own, and he could only hope to find security and an honourable refuge at the foot of the throne, to which he was alike guided by inclination and duty. Louis XVI. as a man had far more ...

— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... while. There was a sour taste in his mouth. To do the little thing with a big heart was after all nothing but a sham. His ideals, he thought, had simmered down to petty things. He was spending his time in nosing out small evil-smelling scandals and in running for a mean inferior office. He felt nauseated with himself. Worse, he felt a horrible new doubt of his wife. Mrs. Appleton had been to him the type of woman he disliked, worldly, shallow, busy with the sticks and straws; yet now there would creep in a suspicion that ...

— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... house, had six stalwart sons by his first wife, Girolama Savelli. They were conspicuous for their gigantic stature and herculean strength. After their mother's death in 1571, their father became enamoured of a woman inferior at all points, in birth, breeding, and antecedents, to a person of his quality. She was a certain Eufrosina, who had been married to a man called Corberio. The great Marc Antonio Colonna murdered this husband, and brought ...

— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... who yesterday was hale and hearty, full of will power and brain, and who to-day is a different person with drooping under-lip, lack-lustre eye, and bearing in every movement the indecision which marks the inferior mind. ...

— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... true of the merchant was true of men in every walk in life. Their opportunities were few, their labor was hard, their comforts of life were far inferior to what is now within their reach. In every great city to-day are men, women, and boys engaged in a hundred trades, professions, and occupations unknown in 1790. The great corporations, mills, factories, mines, railroads, ...

— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

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