Both Uses of
inferior
in
Babbitt
- He was baronial; he was a peer in the rapidly crystallizing American aristocracy, inferior only to the haughty Old Families.†
Chpt 15 *inferior = (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
- No regret, no desire to escape the toil of keeping up with the arduous merriment of the Bunch, was so great as his feeling of social inferiority when he failed to keep up.†
Chpt 29inferiority = 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)