ideal vs inferior

ideal

noun
  • A perfect standard of beauty, intellect etc., or a standard of excellence to aim at. 

  • A subsemigroup with the property that if any semigroup element outside of it is added to any one of its members, the result must lie outside of it. 

  • A subring closed under multiplication by its containing ring. 

  • A non-empty lower set (of a partially ordered set) which is closed under binary suprema (a.k.a. joins). 

  • A collection of sets, considered small or negligible, such that every subset of each member and the union of any two members are also members of the collection. 

  • A Lie subalgebra (subspace that is closed under the Lie bracket) 𝖍 of a given Lie algebra 𝖌 such that the Lie bracket [𝖌,𝖍] is a subset of 𝖍. 

adj
  • Not actually present, but considered as present when limits at infinity are included. 

  • Optimal; being the best possibility. 

  • Existing only in the mind; conceptual, imaginary. 

  • Pertaining to ideas, or to a given idea. 

  • Perfect, flawless, having no defects. 

  • Teaching or relating to the doctrine of idealism. 

inferior

noun
  • A person of lower rank, stature, or ability to another. 

  • An inferior letter, figure, or symbol. 

adj
  • Nearer to the Sun than the Earth is. 

  • (of a court or tribunal) Susceptible to having its decisions overturned by a higher court. 

  • Lower in rank, status, or quality. 

  • On the side of a flower which is next to the bract. 

  • Situated further below (another part of the body), a direction that in humans corresponds to caudad. 

  • Situated in a relatively low posterior or ventral position in a quadrupedal body. 

  • Situated below some other organ (said of a calyx when free from the ovary, and therefore below it, or of an ovary with an adherent and therefore inferior calyx). 

  • Of low rank, standard or quality. 

  • Denoting goods or services which are in greater demand during a recession than in a boom, for example second-hand clothes. 

  • Below the horizon. 

  • Printed in subscript. 

How often have the words ideal and inferior occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )