All 5 Uses of
inferior
in
Arrowsmith
- Like most laboratory men, he believed that the reason why workmen found less joy in sewing vests or in pulling a lever than he did in a long research was because they were an inferior race, born lazy and wicked.†
Chpt 22inferior = (adjective) of low quality, or of lower quality or rank than something else OR (more rarely as a noun) a person of lower rank or status
- I certainly don't see why we should be inferior to this bunch, in ANYTHING.†
Chpt 22
- At clinic luncheons he met surgeons from London, New York, Boston; men with limousines and social positions and the offensive briskness of the man who has numerous engagements, or the yet more offensive quietness of the person who is amused by his inferiors; master technicians, readers of papers at medical congresses, executives and controllers, unafraid to operate before a hundred peering doctors, or to give well-bred and exceedingly final orders to subordinates; captaingenerals of medicine, never doubting themselves, great priests and healers; men mature and wise and careful and blandly cordial.†
Chpt 25inferiors = People who are of lower rank or status
- Martin was faithful enough about it, and gave to it almost every morning, but he blasphemed more than usual and he unholily welcomed scientific papers in which lipovaccines were condemned as inferior to ordinary salt solutions.†
Chpt 27inferior = (adjective) of low quality, or of lower quality or rank than something else OR (more rarely as a noun) a person of lower rank or status
- Like most white Americans, Martin had talked a great deal about the inferiority of Negroes and had learned nothing whatever about them.†
Chpt 33 *inferiority = the state of being of low quality or of lower quality than something else
Definitions:
-
(1)
(inferior) 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
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Less commonly, specialized senses include:- anatomy and botany -- a lower position on a body or plant (or pointed downward)
- typography -- a character that drops beneath a printing line (such as with subscript)
- astronomy -- having an orbit relative to the sun that is lower than earth's (making Mercury and Venus inferior planets)