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Imperfectly developed in size or vigor; small and feeble; inferior; petty. A puny subject strikes at thy great glory. Shak. Breezes laugh to scorn our puny speed. Keble.

An inferior kind of silk, or mixture of silk and worsted. [Obs.] Donne.

An armed ship having her upper deck cut away, and thus reduced to the next inferior rate, as a seventy-four cut down to a frigate. Totten.

y of capacity of the human mind by which it is distinguished from the intelligence of the inferior animals; the higher as distinguished from the lower cognitive faculties, sense, imagination, and memory, and in contrast to the feelings and desires. Reason comprises conception, judgment, reasoning, and the intuitional f…

To bring to any inferior state, with respect to rank, size, quantity, quality, value, etc.; to diminish; to lower; to degrade; to impair; as, to reduce a sergeant to the ranks; to reduce a drawing; to reduce expenses; to reduce the intensity of heat. "An ancient but reduced family." Sir W. Scott. Nothing so excellent b…

To remove, usually to an inferior position; to consign; to transfer; specifically, to send into exile; to banish. It [the Latin language] was relegated into the study of the scholar. Milman.

A sending back, as when a record is remitted by a superior to an inferior court. Wharton.

lief of such persons as addressed the sovereign by supplication; -- now abolished. It was inferior to the Court of Chancery. [Eng.] Brande & C.

Having gular teeth formed by a peculiar modification of the inferior spines of some of the vertebræ, as certain South African snakes (Dasypelits) which swallow birds' eggs and use these gular teeth to crush them.

urse of things taken together; in the final result; in the end; finally. [Man] starts the inferior of the brute animals, but he surpasses them in the long run. J. H. Newman. -- Home run. (a) A running or returning toward home, or to the point from which the start was made. Cf. Home stretch. (b) (Baseball) See under Hom…

es above which were assigned to the guests of distinction, and those below to dependents, inferiors, and poor relations. See Saltfoot. His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt. B. Jonson. -- Acid salt (Chem.) (a) A salt derived from an acid which has sev…

A kind of minium, or red lead, made by calcining carbonate of lead, but inferior to true minium. [Written also sandyx.] [Obs.]

a class of vegetable organisms, in the classification of Cohn, which includes all of the inferior forms that multiply by fission, whether they contain chlorophyll or not.

the commen live stock of a region of no particular breed or not of pure breed, esp. when inferior in size, etc. [U.S.] Scrub bird (Zoöl.), an Australian passerine bird of the family Atrichornithidæ, as Atrichia clamosa; -- called also brush bird. -- Scrub oak (Bot.), the popular name of several dwarfish species of oa…

Next to the first in value, power, excellence, dignity, or rank; secondary; subordinate; inferior. May the day when we become the second people upon earth . . . be the day of our utter extirpation. Landor.

Of the rank or degree below the best highest; inferior; second- rate; as, a second-class house; a second-class passage.

One who occupies a subordinate, inferior, or auxiliary place; a delegate deputy; one who is second or next to the chief officer; as, the secondary, or undersheriff of the city of London. Old Escalus . . . is thy secondary. Shak.

Humbled by consciousness of inferiority, unworthiness, guilt, or shame.

Humiliation or abasement proceeding from consciousness of inferiority, guilt, or shame.

An element possessing metallic properties in an inferior degree and not malleable, as arsenic, antimony, bismuth, molybdenum, uranium, etc. [Obs.]