inferiority
Other forms: inferiorities
Inferiority is the quality of being worse than other things or people.
You know how some movies are terrible — inferior — compared to other movies? You've noticed the inferiority of those films. Inferiority is a quality possessed by people and things that are not as good as others. To a king, the common people are defined by their inferiority. Most people agree on the inferiority of a TV dinner to a home-cooked meal. When someone feels like they are always worse off than others, they have an inferiority complex. Inferiority is the opposite of superiority.
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the state of being inferiorsynonyms: lower rank, lower statustypes:backseata secondary or inferior position or statusshadea position of relative inferiorityjunior statusin a junior positiontype of:low status, lowliness, lownessa position of inferior status; low in station or rank or fortune or estimation
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an inferior qualitysynonyms: low qualityantonyms:superioritythe quality of being superiortypes:poornessthe quality of being poorly made or maintainedsecond classnot the highest quality in a classificationwretchednessthe quality of being poor and inferior and sorry
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the quality of being a competitive disadvantagesynonyms: unfavorable positiontype of:disadvantagethe quality of having an inferior or less favorable position
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Vocabulary lists containing inferiority
In 1951, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) recruited 13 parents to file a class action suit on behalf of their children. The named plaintiff, Oliver Brown, was the father of a third grader who, denied admission to a neighborhood school because of his race, was forced to walk six blocks to take a bus to a black school. On reviewing the District Court's ruling based on the precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court decided that segregated public schools were unequal and unconstitutional. This led to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. These words are from the unanimous opinion written by Earl Warren. Read the full text here.
In J.D. Salinger's classic novel, Holden Caulfield leaves his prep school and experiences disillusionment and alienation while wandering around New York City.
In 1892, Homer Plessy, a citizen of mixed descent, was convicted for refusing to move from his seat in the "Whites Only" car of an East Louisiana Railway train. Ruling that separate but equal facilities did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court upheld the verdict of John Ferguson, the criminal district court judge of Orleans. This led to decades of segregation that denied African Americans their rights. The decision was eventually overturned in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.This list contains words from the majority opinion written by Henry Brown. Read the full text here.