Both Uses

inferior
in
Finding a Voice - One Writer's Beginnings - Chpt 3
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Though he was a reader, he was not a lover of fiction, because fiction is not true, and for that flaw it was forever inferior to fact.†
*

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
My father and mother, who believed that I saw nothing in the world which was not strictly coaxed into place like a vine on our garden trellis to be presented to my eyes, would have been badly concerned if they had guessed how often the weak and inferior and strangely turned examples of what was to come showed themselves to me.†

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)
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)