inferior vs least

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. 

least

noun
  • Something of the smallest possible extent; an indivisible unit. 

adv
  • Used for forming superlatives of adjectives, especially those that do not form the superlative by adding -est. 

  • In the smallest or lowest degree; in a degree below all others. 

prep
  • At least. 

  • What a stupid white privileged POS I am! Least I call myself out. 

  • 2019 December, Justin Blackburn, The Bisexual Christian Suburban Failure Enlightening Bipolar Blues, page 79 

det
  • The most little; the smallest amount or quantity of something. 

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