inferior

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin īnferior (“lower in situation or place”), comparative of īnferus (“below, underneath”).

adj

1. Lower in rank, status, or quality.
   1. Of low rank, standard or quality.
      an inferior officer
   2. (law) (of a court or tribunal) Susceptible to having its decisions overturned by a higher court.
   3. (economics) Denoting goods or services which are in greater demand during a recession than in a boom, for example second-hand clothes.
2. Located below:
   1. (anatomy) Situated further below (another part of the body), a direction that in humans corresponds to caudad.
   2. (zoology) Situated in a relatively low posterior or ventral position in a quadrupedal body.
   3. (botany) 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).
   4. (botany) On the side of a flower which is next to the bract.
   5. (typography) Printed in subscript.
      an inferior figure or letter
   6. (astronomy) Below the horizon.
      the inferior part of a meridian
3. (astronomy) Nearer to the Sun than the Earth is.
   the inferior or interior planets; an inferior conjunction of Mercury or Venus

noun

1. A person of lower rank, stature, or ability to another.
   As you are my inferior, I can tell you to do anything I want.
2. (printing) An inferior letter, figure, or symbol.