INFERIORITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does inferiority mean? 

• INFERIORITY (noun)
  The noun INFERIORITY has 3 senses:

1. the state of being inferior

2. an inferior quality

3. the quality of being a competitive disadvantage

  Familiarity information: INFERIORITY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INFERIORITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of being inferior

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

inferiority; lower rank; lower status

Hypernyms ("inferiority" is a kind of...):

low status; lowliness; lowness (a position of inferior status; low in station or rank or fortune or estimation)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "inferiority"):

backseat (a secondary or inferior position or status)

shade (a position of relative inferiority)

subordinateness; subsidiarity (secondary importance)

Derivation:

inferior (falling short of some prescribed norm)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An inferior quality

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

inferiority; low quality

Hypernyms ("inferiority" is a kind of...):

caliber; calibre; quality (a degree or grade of excellence or worth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "inferiority"):

poorness (the quality of being poorly made or maintained)

scrawniness; scrubbiness (the property of being stunted and inferior in size or quality)

second class (not the highest quality in a classification)

wretchedness (the quality of being poor and inferior and sorry)

Antonym:

superiority (the quality of being superior)

Derivation:

inferior (of low or inferior quality)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The quality of being a competitive disadvantage

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

inferiority; unfavorable position

Hypernyms ("inferiority" is a kind of...):

disadvantage (the quality of having an inferior or less favorable position)

 Context examples 

He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

She did unfeignedly and unequivocally regret the inferiority of her own playing and singing.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

There she felt her own inferiority very keenly.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Her partiality for this gentleman was not of recent origin; and he had been long withheld only by inferiority of situation from addressing her.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy."

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

He felt that it would be inappropriate and a confession of inferiority on his part—which would never do if he was to win to her.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Though unworthy, from inferiority of age and strength, to be their constant associate, their pleasures and schemes were sometimes of a nature to make a third very useful, especially when that third was of an obliging, yielding temper; and they could not but own, when their aunt inquired into her faults, or their brother Edmund urged her claims to their kindness, that Fanny was good-natured enough.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Her inferiority, whether of mind or situation, seemed little felt.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? —to congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)