13 uses
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? —3 uses
exact meaning not specified
Definition
of low quality, or of lower quality or rank than something else — sometimes used as a noun to refer to a person of lower rank or status
- In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority.Chapters 85-87 — The Fountain; The Tail; The Grand Armada (31% in)
- This it is, that for ever keeps God's true princes of the Empire from the world's hustings; and leaves the highest honours that this air can give, to those men who become famous more through their infinite inferiority to the choice hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than through their undoubted superiority over the dead level of the mass.Chapters 31-33 — Queen Mab; Cetology; The Specksnyder (97% in)
- Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists, whose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them.Chapters 46-48 — Surmises; The Mat-Maker; The First Lowering (49% in)
There are no more uses of "inferior" flagged with this meaning in Moby Dick.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
? —10 uses
exact meaning not specified
- 144,000 lbs. cheese (probably an inferior article).Chapters 100-102 — The Pequod meets....; The Decanter; A Bower in the Arsacides (66% in)
- "The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood gushing from the whale's heart."Extracts (56% in)
- It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or baleen; and the oil specially known as "whale oil," an inferior article in commerce.Chapters 31-33 — Queen Mab; Cetology; The Specksnyder (39% in)
- At present he ranks simply as senior Harpooneer; and as such, is but one of the captain's more inferior subalterns.Chapters 31-33 — Queen Mab; Cetology; The Specksnyder (89% in)
- In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and nameless invisible domineerings of the captain's table, was the entire care-free license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of those inferior fellows the harpooneers.Chapters 34-36 — The Cabin-Table; The Mast-Head; The Qarter-Deck—Ahab and all (18% in)
- And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of those inferior creatures; and though the Pequod was not commissioned to cruise for them at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near the Crozetts without lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale had been brought alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the announcement was made that a Right Whale should be captured that day, if opportunity offered.Chapters 73-75 — Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; The Sperm Whale's Head, The Right Whale's Head (3% in)
- But before going further, it is important to mention here, that though the harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way with the lance, yet it is seldom done; and when done, is still less frequently successful, on account of the greater weight and inferior length of the harpoon as compared with the lance, which in effect become serious drawbacks.Chapters 82-84 — The Honour and Glory of Whaling; Jonah Historically Regarded; Pitchpoling (87% in)
- Yet are there those who will still do it; notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of a very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of attar-of-rose.Chapters 91-93 — The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud; Ambergris; The Castaway (5% in)
- It designates the dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the Greenland or right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan.Chapters 94-96 — A Squeeze of the Hand; The Cassock; The Try-Works (27% in)
- And so, such hearts, though summary in each one suffering; still, if the gods decree it, in their life-time aggregate a whole age of woe, wholly made up of instantaneous intensities; for even in their pointless centres, those noble natures contain the entire circumferences of inferior souls.Chapters 133-135 — The Chase—First Day; The Chase—Second Day; The Chase—Third Day (24% in)
There are no more uses of "inferior" in Moby Dick.
Typical Usage
(best examples)