Chief and Subordinate

Opposite meaning words

Chief adjective - Coming before all others in importance.

Usage example: our chief priority this year will be cutting the budget

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Nearby Word: chiefly

Subordinate noun - One who is of lower rank and typically under the authority of another.

Usage example: subordinates do most of the actual creation of the famous designer's clothing designs

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Chief is an antonym for subordinate in topics: lesser, independent, person that serves another.

female	female chief	female subordinate
dead	dead chief	dead subordinate
stupid	stupid chief	stupid subordinate
incompetent	incompetent chief	incompetent subordinate
Other adjectives: secret, traitorous, former, military, next, last, competent.

The Consigliere: In most armies the position of a commander's chief of staff was very much his subordinate and his tasks could be described as ancillary - thus some historians have described the position of Marshal Berthier, Napoleon's chief of the general staff, as that of "a glorified clerk".

Source: Useful Notes / The Napoleonic Wars
M then tells her subordinate that this proves the opposite, as there would be no need for the CIA Section Chief for South America to personally get this call otherwise.

Source: You Just Told Me
Da Chief takes it upon themselves to personally get involved in order to rescue their subordinate.

Source: Four-Star Badass

Cite this Source

Subordinate and Chief. (2016). Retrieved 2026, July 21, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/chief/subordinate

Chief & Subordinate. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Jul. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/chief/subordinate>.

Subordinate or Chief. 2016. Accessed July 21, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/chief/subordinate.

Google Ngram Viewer shows how "chief" and "subordinate" have occurred on timeline