Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Belonging to a lower or inferior class or rank; secondary.
- adj. Subject to the authority or control of another.
- n. One that is subordinate.
- v. To put in a lower or inferior rank or class.
- v. To make subservient; subdue.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To place in an order or rank below something else; make or consider as of less value or importance: as, to subordinate temporal to spiritual things.
- To make auxiliary or subservient to something else; put under control or authority; make subject.
- In a lower order or class; occupying a lower position in a descending scale; secondary.
- Inferior in order, nature, dignity, power, rank, importance, etc.
- In law, a clause in a statute which, from its position or the nature of its substance, or especially by reason of grammatical relation as above indicated, must be deemed controlled or restrained in its meaning if it conflicts with another clause in the same statute.
- Synonyms Subservient, minor.
- n. One inferior in power, order, rank, dignity, office, etc.; one who stands in order or rank below another; often, one below and under the orders of another; in grammar, a word or clause dependent on another.
Wiktionary
- adj. Placed in a lower class, rank, or position.
- adj. Submissive to or controlled by authority.
- adj. grammar, of a clause, not comparable dependent on and either modifying or complementing the main clause
- n. countable One who is subordinate.
- v. transitive To make subservient.
- v. transitive To treat as of less value or importance.
- v. transitive, finance To make of lower priority in order of payment in bankruptcy.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Placed in a lower order, class, or rank; holding a lower or inferior position.
- adj. Inferior in order, nature, dignity, power, importance, or the like.
- n. One who stands in order or rank below another; -- distinguished from a
principal . - v. To place in a lower order or class; to make or consider as of less value or importance.
- v. To make subject; to subject or subdue.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an assistant subject to the authority or control of another
- adj. lower in rank or importance
- adj. subject or submissive to authority or the control of another
- v. rank or order as less important or consider of less value
- v. make subordinate, dependent, or subservient
- n. a word that is more specific than a given word
- adj. (of a clause) unable to stand alone syntactically as a complete sentence
Etymologies
- Middle English subordinat, from Medieval Latin subōrdinātus, past participle of subōrdināre, to put in a lower rank : Latin sub-, sub- + Latin ōrdināre, to set in order (from ōrdō, ōrdin-, order; see ar- in Indo-European roots). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“So I asked the students, what do you think about the term subordinate group?”
“This is super common in subordinate male loose affilitations.”
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“Hey ralph, it seems a subordinate is trying desperately to rise in the social heirarchy by attempting to build a social affiliation with a higher ranking member of the troop ….”
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“Ex-president Clinton famously evaded a question regarding his exploitation of women in subordinate positions by responding "it all depends on the meaning of the word 'is'.”
“She's in subordinate position A position where she needs to be humble.”
“Thus, transferring accountability to a subordinate is never assumed, and needs to be spelled out.”
“Thus, equality of rights can keep women and minorities in subordinate positions because they are “different.””
“Yet sometimes, others, in subordinate positions, want to come in and break down that structure.”
“Consequently it is possible that contradictories may lead to a conclusion, though not always or in every mood, but only if the terms subordinate to the middle are such that they are either identical or related as whole to part.”
“And so the question is, will Japan accept a long-term subordinate position to the United States?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘subordinate’.
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EN - academic vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3119 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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INTERP - terminology management terms
Terms from the fields of terminology, lexicography, lexicology and corpus linguistics
reworder, rewording, parser, parsing, tagger, tagging, aligner, aligning, content analysis, content analyzer, corpus management, glossary and 546 more...
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sub- (suc-, suf-, etc.)
lower; somewhat; secondary; supporting
subalpine, subordinate, subconscious, subvention, sublet, subsistence, subsidize, sub, subacetate, subacid, subacidity, subacidness and 114 more...
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mereological verb/adjectives
A class of words I'm interested in. It'll be a short list I think, but I think I've not thought of them all. I like that they're used both as adjectives and as verbs; and that they speak to the rel...
reticulate, imbrecate, tessellate, pixelate, plicate, divaricate, correlate, separate, discriminate, subordinate, superordinate, coordinate and 9 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Vocabulary Words 2.
cow tow, evident, harassed, egalitarians, anomolous, tenuous, fondly, foment, construe, ingratiate, parlance, spectacular and 96 more...
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Bi-sonics
Allophonic homographs. Words that are pronounced at least 2 ways, having different senses. 'august' and 'polish' are less ambiguous since capitalization make the correct pronunciation clear (at lea...
sow, row, dove, polish, precedent, rewet, lower, read, bass, patent, primer, tear and 102 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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SAT Vocab
Redundant.
problematic, proclivity, prodigal, prodigious, prodigy, profane, profligate, profound, profusion, proliferation, prolific, prologue and 455 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
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ESL Academic Word List
This is a list of academic words for students learning English as a Second or Foreign Language. It includes 570 word families that often appear in academic texts. It does not include words that are...
collapse, depression, colleagues, invoked, levy, nonetheless, likewise, so-called, ongoing, conceived, forthcoming, integrity and 558 more...
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Panvocalics
Panvocalics are words that contain all the vowels. Listed here are "euvocalics": words that have each of the five vowels only once. (These are also a kind of supervocalic.) Words that also have a "...
subcontinental, unoriental, ultraviolet, tourmaline, sequoia, jacqueminot, milquetoast, xenosaurid, thunderation, adenovirus, accoutering, absolutive and 2777 more...
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