How to Use subordinate in a Sentence

subordinate

1 of 3 adjective
Definition of subordinatenext
Synonyms for subordinatenext
  • For Gilman, the life of an artist was always subordinate to the work.
    — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 14 Mar. 2023
  • And then the third thing, subordinate to those two: Is there a good deal for us here?
    — Jeff John Roberts, Fortune, 1 Aug. 2022
  • Above all, Napoleon believed that the church should be subordinate to the state.
    — Zenger News, Forbes, 26 Jan. 2023
  • For them love is, in a certain sense, subordinate to work.
    — A-LIST, 17 Oct. 2017
  • Grout, his subordinate, was in charge of recording the value of the investments each day.
    — Larry Neumeister, The Seattle Times, 21 July 2017
  • In the ruling, the court says that Congress gets to determine who is a citizen and courts play a subordinate role in that process.
    — The Salt Lake Tribune, 17 June 2021
  • What is a sticky wicket is when partner is subordinate to the other.
    — Jenna Reyes, BostonGlobe.com, 28 Jan. 2023
  • Pichai quietly withdrew from the board in 2018 and installed a Google subordinate in his place.
    — Fortune, 26 Sep. 2020
  • Instead of explaining how Comey broke those rules, Sessions, like Trump, leans on his subordinate to churn out the fine print.
    — Mattathias Schwartz, The Intercept, 10 May 2017
  • The agreement to commit to Team Number One will be tested by a promise made to someone on a subordinate team.
    — Scott Brown, Forbes, 19 Apr. 2023
  • All the analysis and strategy, as the series draws closer to a conclusion, can be subordinate to the sheer desire of one team to move on to the next round.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 7 June 2021
  • All data and facts, all judgment about stories and the people who produce them, are subordinate to the mission.
    — Gerard Baker, WSJ, 14 June 2021
  • Fox cannot sound defensive or defiant or inclined to pass the buck to a subordinate or even a player.
    — Chris Jones, chicagotribune.com, 22 Sep. 2017
  • But the near miss this time should not mean that officials subordinate to a President should be left exposed to such pressure in the future.
    — Stephen Collinson, CNN, 8 Oct. 2021
  • Neom is expected to have its own laws separate from the broader kingdom but subordinate to the monarch, King Salman, the crown prince’s father.
    — Rory Jones, WSJ, 17 Sep. 2022
  • Born in 1954, Frazier grew up at a time when the country still struggled to see Black people as full citizens rather than a subordinate racial caste.
    — Douglas Haynes, Forbes, 28 Feb. 2021
  • Hendrie and Mr. K believe that Hai, a subordinate, wanted to protect the top trader.
    — National Geographic, 5 Aug. 2016
  • Oh, there'll still be room for men to serve, but only in the subordinate roles appropriate for their lesser agency.
    — Ron Charles, Philly.com, 22 Oct. 2017
  • As two subordinate officers were taking him out of the 96th Street Station, the man yelled anti-Asian slurs at Wong and kicked him in the leg, prosecutors said.
    — NBC News, 23 July 2021
  • Her father, a judge in a subordinate court system in Tellicherry, kept a garden in their home and wrote two books on birds in the North Malabar region of India.
    — Leila McNeill, Smithsonian, 1 Aug. 2019
  • North Polish Santa's elves are just a bunch of subordinate Clauses.
    — Woman's Day, 13 Sep. 2022
  • The male subordinate doesn’t make the mistake again; the female subordinate does and her career suffers as a result.
    — NBC News, 2 Aug. 2019
  • The key question: who would be subordinate to whom under the new hierarchy.
    — Nima Elbagir, CNN, 26 Apr. 2023
  • After your boss makes an awkward joke or puts his arm around a female subordinate, look at the woman or women on the receiving end.
    — Kaitlin Menza, Esquire, 13 Oct. 2017
  • In a quest for normalcy over the past few months of closures, the desire among gym-goers to get back at it has seemed subordinate only to people’s urge to return to bars and restaurants.
    — Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, 8 Sep. 2020
  • That vote probably would be cast by a Dykes subordinate serving as her ex-officio designee on the board.
    — Jon Lender, courant.com, 8 Aug. 2020
  • In other words, all staff, and not just those deemed subordinate, are subject to constructive critique.
    — Kara Dennison, Forbes, 27 May 2021
  • There’s no debate, however, that Clinton had an affair with a subordinate in the White House and then lied about that affair under oath.
    — David Harsanyi, National Review, 19 Dec. 2019
  • That was deemed to be disposable — subordinate, at all points, to politics.
    — Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review, 3 June 2021
  • Along with the article, the newspaper published a video filmed by other staffers who had secretly recorded Telles and the subordinate — both married — in the back seat of her car.
    — Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times, 9 Sep. 2022
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subordinate

2 of 3 noun
  • She leaves the day-to-day running of the firm to her subordinates.
  • Wenig's subordinate passed some of the messages on to Baugh.
    — Aaron Pressman, Fortune, 15 June 2020
  • Then Schembri called a subordinate and told him to talk to Theuma about a job.
    — Ben Taub, The New Yorker, 14 Dec. 2020
  • When the day and time are fixed, subordinates are so informed.
    — Kat Moon, Time, 4 June 2019
  • The size of Hung’s trades dwarfs those that got his subordinate, who has denied any wrongdoing, in the crosshairs of the SEC.
    — Ellis Simani, ProPublica, 22 June 2023
  • Because your subordinates in the end will not support you and carry you over the line.
    — CBS News, 4 Dec. 2019
  • The subordinate was demoted to a filing deputy, the suit said.
    — Fox News, 9 Mar. 2022
  • Former fire chief Kelvin Cochran self-published the book and gave it to subordinates.
    — Kate Brumback, The Seattle Times, 16 Oct. 2018
  • Trump hates when his subordinates make bad news for him.
    — Chris Cillizza, CNN, 18 May 2017
  • In this picture of a one-man reign of pure corruption, hapless subordinates labor in vain to hold on to the just and the true.
    — Dorothy Rabinowitz, WSJ, 27 June 2019
  • So the scientists altered the calls of an alpha male the subordinates knew.
    — Virginia Morell, Science | AAAS, 20 July 2017
  • For this reason, the IDB spokesman told me, the subordinate had to decline my request for comment.
    — Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, 8 May 2022
  • But there has been no evidence to date that Ms. Foxx, who is up for re-election in 2020, pushed her subordinates to drop the charges.
    — Julia Jacobs, New York Times, 1 July 2019
  • Ten times a day, over 4 days, the researchers put a dominant mouse nose-to-nose with a subordinate in a clear, narrow tube.
    — Byemily Underwood, science.org, 27 Jan. 2023
  • Franky’s proving stubborn, so his subordinates steal his ever-present swimsuit in a bid to lure him over to Luffy to seal the deal.
    — Tracy Brown, Los Angeles Times, 1 Sep. 2023
  • Air Force sergeant posted video of her rant about black subordinates.
    — Greg Larose, NOLA.com, 31 Jan. 2018
  • Johnson went out drinking with a subordinate, then was found asleep at the wheel near his Bridgeport home.
    — Megan Crepeau, chicagotribune.com, 23 Oct. 2020
  • From his children to his subordinates, to a poor waiter who would die a couple of hours later, no one is safe.
    — Jack Francis, Rolling Stone, 11 Apr. 2023
  • Moreover, since the rainmakers pocket the largest cut of the fee, their subordinates have less incentive to do a fine job.
    — The Economist, 6 Feb. 2020
  • The suit alleges that Easterbrook, who was fired for sexting with a subordinate, did far more than that.
    — Beth Kowitt, Fortune, 12 Aug. 2020
  • Rosen learned after the fact that Clark, his subordinate, had met with Trump at the White House to discuss pursuing claims of voter fraud.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 12 Aug. 2021
  • Hlaing’s deputy, Soe Win, and two other subordinates were sanctioned for heading army units that led the crackdown on the Rohingya.
    — Fox News, 11 Dec. 2019
  • By the end of the summer, McMaster had weeded out some of his most toxic subordinates.
    — Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, 23 Apr. 2018
  • So Brown dialed a subordinate’s number at one o’clock in the morning.
    — Bysheryl Estrada, Fortune, 19 Sep. 2023
  • Top Navy commanders pressured subordinates to sail even when the crews and ships were not fully prepared to go to sea.
    — Joaquin Sapien, ProPublica, 7 Sep. 2023
  • But the town’s police chief, who likens them to flowers, says his female subordinates have soothed motorists.
    — The Economist, 12 July 2018
  • In addition to misuse of his aide, Uribe was found to have accepted gifts and loans from subordinates.
    — Andrew Dyer, sandiegouniontribune.com, 10 July 2018
  • When China’s ambassador to Ghana arrived back at his post in 1972, one of the cadres who had attacked him in Beijing was sent to work as his subordinate.
    — Peter C. Martin, The Atlantic, 19 June 2021
  • One of his former subordinates, Freddie Kitchens, excelled enough in his stead as a play-caller to become the head coach in Cleveland.
    — Chris Bumbaca, USA TODAY, 17 Nov. 2019
  • When in the military, the subordinate in question has access to weaponry.
    — New York Times, 10 Feb. 2020
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subordinate

3 of 3 verb
  • The dignity of man was subordinated to the powers of Nazism.
    — Robert D. McFadden, BostonGlobe.com, 9 June 2023
  • And no one can hope to rise in the ranks without subordinating his interests to those of others.
    — Dan McLaughlin, National Review, 27 Dec. 2023
  • The news about her pregnancy had prompted him to subordinate his artistic ego to the expense of raising a child.
    — Nell Zink, Harper's magazine, 24 June 2019
  • In searching for the next artistic director, the board needs to subordinate MBA logic.
    — Los Angeles Times, 10 June 2021
  • The reason is that each would require leading states to subordinate their own sovereignty.
    — Henry A. Kissinger, Foreign Affairs, 13 Oct. 2023
  • In the end, the 1990s didn’t advance women and girls; rather, the decade was marked by a shocking, accelerating effort to subordinate them.
    — Allison Yarrow, Time, 13 June 2018
  • The desire to punish belligerence—and to subordinate other geopolitical goals to that cause—is once again in the air.
    — Jordan Michael Smith, The New Republic, 20 Apr. 2022
  • That’s the opposite of Trump’s approach, which is to subordinate Amazon not to the government but to his personal whims.
    — Jeet Heer, The New Republic, 4 Apr. 2018
  • Other challenges included the sloping site and the need for the addition to be both harmonious with and subordinate to the farmhouse.
    — Marni Elyse Katz, BostonGlobe.com, 15 June 2018
  • In a sense, though, these touches are subordinated to a broader vision.
    — Justin Davidson, Smithsonian, 29 June 2017
  • Your notion that our ability to have this conversation is subordinated to the color of our skin doesn’t make any sense to me.
    — Ezra Klein, Vox, 9 Apr. 2018
  • Crusoe keeps Friday as a servant, implying that the best way to civilize a savage is to subordinate him.
    — Pallavi Kottamasu, BostonGlobe.com, 2 June 2018
  • Giving and receiving feedback is a two-way street and should never just be from manager to subordinate.
    — Austin Speck, Forbes, 14 Apr. 2022
  • Although the situation is sticky, Frank decides to help his subordinate out.
    — Jennifer Aldrich, Country Living, 1 Feb. 2019
  • Argott and Joyce subordinate these more pressing political questions to a mirror-box exploration of the nature of truth and the unfathomable secrets of the soul.
    — Peter Keough, BostonGlobe.com, 20 June 2019
  • Feminists can be depicted as jealous man haters who want to subordinate men.
    — Joy Burnford, Forbes, 26 May 2021
  • In many places, children expect to support their elderly parents and will subordinate their interests to that aim.
    — New York Times, 22 Feb. 2022
  • Treating replies as equal as opposed to subordinate somehow just allows for a very different and much more broad range of public conversations.
    — Alex Heath, The Verge, 5 July 2023
  • Conflating these terms, which was done numerous times through the pandemic, will only further subordinate public health to health care and not address root problems in the system.
    — Torie Bosch, STAT, 2 Dec. 2023
  • And in a sense, our law reinforces the idea that religion has been — and could be again — a salient characteristic on the basis of which groups can be subordinated within the American populace.
    — Christopher Shea, Vox, 1 Aug. 2018
  • In truth, the United States has long used its diplomatic might to subordinate global public health to entrenched corporate interests.
    — Eric Levitz, Daily Intelligencer, 10 July 2018
  • Luckily, no other nation has enjoyed China’s level of success in subordinating the internet to the will of the state, because of both its head start and its massive scale of investment.
    — Popular Science, 4 Oct. 2018
  • In holding it back, Trump was subordinating that interest to something else — but not explaining his motives publicly or to Congress.
    — NBC News, 1 Oct. 2019
  • In the years following Suharto’s downfall, politicians vowed to subordinate the armed forces to civilian authority.
    — The Economist, 31 Oct. 2019
  • Plenty of talented managers are reluctant to join firms where their career prospects would be subordinated to feckless scions.
    — The Economist, 14 Nov. 2019
  • In many places, however, children expect to support their elderly parents and will subordinate their interests to that aim.
    — New York Times, 22 Feb. 2022
  • The Chinese economy is now managed on the principle that the economic is subordinated to the political.
    — The Editors, National Review, 28 Feb. 2023
  • On the other hand, however, the question of aesthetics has been, more often than not, subordinated to the more urgent issues of feminist politics.
    — Kaitlyn Tiffany, Vox, 1 Nov. 2018
  • And, as Chinese history and the life of Anne Boleyn tells us there is much gain for these women and the families of these women who subordinate natural impulse to rational calculation.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 25 July 2012
  • That means Alaska's interests will be subordinated to a second, third or fourth position.
    — Bernie Karl, Anchorage Daily News, 2 Feb. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'subordinate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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