subordinate
adjective · noun · verb
Simple meaning
Lower or placed; also, subject or submissive.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
suhbawrduhnaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
səˈbɔɹdəneɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Lower in rank or importance
Placed in a lower class, rank, or position.
Subject or submissive to authority or the control of another
Submissive or inferior to, or controlled by authority.
Descending in a regular series.
noun
A hyponym.
countable
One who is subordinate.
verb
transitive
To make subservient or secondary.
Rank or order as less important or consider of less value
“Art is sometimes subordinated to Science in these schools.”
transitive
To treat (someone) as of less value or importance.
Make subordinate, dependent, or subservient
“Our wishes have to be subordinated to that of our ruler.”
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Subject or submissive to authority or the control of another
Used this way, subordinate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- dependent , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
How It’s Used
The word’s distinct uses, one example each.
Makeverb
“Our wishes have to be subordinated to that of our ruler.”
Rank / treatverb
“Art is sometimes subordinated to Science in these schools.”
More ways to use subordinate
- “A subordinate (or dependent) clause functions as a noun or adjective or adverb within a sentence.”adjective
- “Art is sometimes subordinated to Science in these schools.”verb
- “Our wishes have to be subordinated to that of our ruler.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A word that is more specific than a given word.
The subordination that occurs when a conjunction makes one linguistic unit a constituent of another.
A clause in a complex sentence that cannot stand alone as a complete sentence and that functions within the sentence as a noun or adjective or adverb.
A conjunction (like `since' or `that' or `who') that introduces a dependent clause.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Antonyms
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.