Other forms: subordinates
A subordinate is somebody of lower rank than you. Your subordinates, a junior subordinate, subordinate staff.
It is formal and hierarchical, and using it aloud about a colleague sounds cold — most people say the team or my staff. As an adjective it means lower in importance: a subordinate concern. In grammar, a subordinate clause cannot stand alone and depends on a main one. Note that the Latin means placed under, from ordo, order.
1nounsubordinateSomebody of lower rank than you.
“A good manager listens to her subordinates and gives them credit for their work.”
2adjectiveimportanceLower in importance, or dependent, of a clause.
“For years, her own needs were always subordinate to her children's.”
subordinate is a junior, or a dependent element.
Medieval Latin subordinatus is sub plus ordinare, to order, from ordo, an order or rank. Ordinary, order and coordinate come from the same rank.
Medieval Latin
subōrdinātus
Middle English
subordinat
English, today
subordinate
Built from
From Middle English subordinat, from Medieval Latin subōrdinātus, past participle of subordino, from sub- + ordino (“to order”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA