Subaltern
adj, noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A subordinate.
- 2 a British commissioned army officer below the rank of captain wordnet
- 3 A commissioned officer having a rank below that of captain; a lieutenant or second lieutenant. British
"She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux ; and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellow ; a mere nobody sir a subaltern in a foot regiment, or something of that kind."
- 4 A subaltern proposition; a proposition implied by a universal proposition.
- 5 A member of a group that is socially, politically and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the colony and of the colonial homeland.
"Young refers sardonically to the existence of reams of postcolonial "theory", and promises to give us "postcolonialism from below, which is what and where it should rightly be, given that it elaborates a politics of ‘the subaltern’, that is, subordinated classes and peoples"."
- 1 Of a lower rank or position; inferior or secondary; especially (military) ranking as a junior officer, below the rank of captain.
"a subaltern officer"
- 2 Asserting only a part of what is asserted in a related proposition.
- 1 inferior in rank or status wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Two weeks after giving birth[…] she [Rachida Dati] was removed and offered no consolation prize other than the subaltern position of No 2 on the UMP's list for the next European elections."
Etymology
From Middle French subalterne, from Late Latin subalternus, from Latin sub- + alternus, from alter.
Related phrases
More for "subaltern"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.