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Superior vs Ultimate - What's the difference?

superior | ultimate |

As adjectives the difference between superior and ultimate

is that superior is higher in quality while ultimate is final; last in a series.

As nouns the difference between superior and ultimate

is that superior is a person of higher rank or quality while ultimate is the most basic or fundamental of a set of things.

superior

English

Alternative forms

* superiour (obsolete)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Higher in quality.
  • Higher in rank.
  • * , chapter=12
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=There were many wooden chairs for the bulk of his visitors, and two wicker armchairs with red cloth cushions for superior people. From the packing-cases had emerged some Indian clubs, […], and all these articles […] made a scattered and untidy decoration that Mrs. Clough assiduously dusted and greatly cherished.}}
  • More comprehensive, as a term in classification.
  • A genus is superior to a species.
  • Located above.
  • the superior''' jaw; the '''superior part of an image
  • # (botany) Above the ovary; said of parts of the flower which, although normally below the ovary, adhere to it, and so appear to originate from its upper part; also of an ovary when the other floral organs are plainly below it in position, and free from it.
  • # (botany) Belonging to the part of an axillary flower which is toward the main stem; posterior.
  • # (botany) Pointing toward the apex of the fruit; ascending; said of the radicle.
  • # (typography) Printed in superscript.
  • a superior figure or letter
  • Greater or better than average; extraordinary.
  • Beyond the power or influence of; too great or firm to be subdued or affected by; with to .
  • * Spectator
  • There is not in earth a spectacle more worthy than a great man superior to his sufferings.

    Usage notes

    * Superior and inferior are generally followed by to; than is sometimes used mistakenly.

    Antonyms

    * (l)

    Coordinate terms

    *

    Derived terms

    * superiorness

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person of higher rank or quality.
  • The senior person in a monastic community.
  • ultimate

    English

    Adjective

    (wikipedia ultimate) (-)
  • Final; last in a series.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year= 1677 , isbn= , date= , author= (Robert Plot) , title= The natural history of Oxford-shire: Being an Essay Toward the Natural History of England , url= http://books.google.com/books?id=EUqd_M1x40QC&pg=PA15 , page= 15 , chapter= Of the Heavens and Air , passage= }}
  • (of a syllable) Last in a word or other utterance.
  • Being the greatest possible; maximum; most extreme.
  • the ultimate pleasure
    the ultimate disappointment
  • *
  • Hepaticology, outside the temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere, still lies deep in the shadow cast by that ultimate "closet taxonomist," Franz Stephani—a ghost whose shadow falls over us all.
  • Being the most distant or extreme; farthest.
  • That will happen at some time; eventual.
  • Last in a train of progression or consequences; tended toward by all that precedes; arrived at, as the last result; final.
  • * Coleridge
  • those ultimate truths and those universal laws of thought which we cannot rationally contradict
  • Incapable of further analysis; incapable of further division or separation; constituent; elemental.
  • an ultimate constituent of matter

    Antonyms

    * proximate

    Derived terms

    * antepenultimate * penultimate * ultimateness

    Coordinate terms

    * (syllable adjectives)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The most basic or fundamental of a set of things
  • The final or most distant point; the conclusion
  • The greatest extremity; the maximum
  • (uncountable) The sport of ultimate frisbee.
  • Anagrams

    * ----