How to Use inferiority complex in a Sentence

inferiority complex

noun
  • His shyness is the result of an inferiority complex.
  • Michael Kors, for his part, has had enough of the city’s inferiority complex.
    — Vogue Runway, Vogue, 14 Feb. 2025
  • These meal kits gave me a serious inferiority complex about the readiness of my home for the fine dining world.
    — Soleil Ho, San Francisco Chronicle, 16 Feb. 2021
  • For a place with a civic inferiority complex but a rising profile in some tangible ways, this is heady stuff.
    — Sam Mellinger, kansascity, 13 June 2018
  • Dottie walks her home and tries to console her, but Kit is clearly riding an inferiority complex wave that cannot be stopped.
    — Emma Specter, Vogue, 6 Aug. 2021
  • People with an inferiority complex typically have low self-esteem and a lack of self-worth.
    — Laura Dorwart, Verywell Health, 25 Oct. 2024
  • Sold completely, and ready for our city to finally shed its inferiority complex.
    — John Canzano, OregonLive.com, 18 Oct. 2017
  • People talk quite readily of inferiority complexes, but in my mum’s case there was nothing complex about it.
    — Geoff Dyer, Harpers Magazine, 28 Mar. 2025
  • Softball has struggled with an inferiority complex for years.
    — Lori Riley, courant.com, 15 Nov. 2021
  • There is no inferiority complex, no crisis of confidence about facing the team that reached the championship game of this tournament a year ago.
    — Mark Zeigler, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Mar. 2024
  • So this is an opportunity for the Clippers to make some more inroads in this town, and not be seen as a franchise with an inferiority complex.
    — Mark Medina, USA TODAY, 6 June 2021
  • Gray was an indifferent student who cheated on tests, and the new surroundings fed an inferiority complex.
    — Nathan Heller, The New Yorker, 9 Sep. 2019
  • Two years ago, Halftime portrayed Lopez as struggling against a deep inferiority complex.
    — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 16 Feb. 2024
  • But Evangelicals have an inferiority complex that Catholics do not have.
    — Andrew T. Walker, National Review, 31 Dec. 2023
  • The Eagles advanced to two previous Super Bowls, but lost both to add what some in the city admit is something of an inferiority complex.
    — Jarrett Bell, USA TODAY, 8 Feb. 2018
  • This rapid decline, while common to so many former gold rush towns in Alaska, in Anchorage fed a rapidly growing inferiority complex.
    — David Reamer, Anchorage Daily News, 9 Nov. 2020
  • His children represent the products of his inferiority complex.
    — Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader, 17 Oct. 2017
  • Plenty of Angelenos have either suffered from or enforced (or both) our city’s inferiority complex vis-a-vis New York.
    — Margaret Gray, Los Angeles Times, 23 Dec. 2020
  • For 88 years, Spain didn’t beat Italy in a competitive match and an inferiority complex naturally grew.
    — Tim Bielik, cleveland, 6 July 2021
  • But Obama’s simple existence pulled down America’s pants and exposed its flaccid inferiority complex to the world.
    — Michael Harriot, The Root, 2 Mar. 2018
  • But Hints believes that Estonia – like the other Baltic nations – suffers from an inferiority complex.
    — John Bleasdale, Variety, 18 Nov. 2023
  • Alexander Skarsgård plays James Foster, a writer with an inferiority complex.
    — Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times, 25 Jan. 2023
  • Everything about the character — from his flamboyant helmet to his luxurious long hair — stems from his inferiority complex regarding his brother.
    — Bethy Squires, Vulture, 17 Apr. 2024
  • Forbes explains his feelings were reflective of a slight inferiority complex, the Tall Poppy Syndrome, for which Australians say they are known.
    — John Kell, Fortune, 8 Dec. 2019
  • Reductive as the outcome may be, the writer-director remains undeniably daring, spinning comedy from an inferiority complex and coming out on top.
    — Peter Debruge, Variety, 15 Mar. 2025
  • That defeat, Rodrigues wrote, exemplified a collective inferiority complex Brazil saw in itself, not just in soccer but in its relationship with the rest of the world.
    — Tariq Panja, New York Times, 29 Dec. 2022
  • Always responding to Barkley’s jabs just reinforces the contention of some that San Antonio has a major inferiority complex.
    — Jim Lefko, San Antonio Express-News, 11 May 2018
  • Greg’s inferiority complex is showing.
    — Erin Qualey, Vulture, 9 Mar. 2026
  • Perhaps the inferiority complex that attaches to membership in the House versus the Senate also encourages the use of congressman.
    — Daniel Wirls, The Conversation, 16 May 2024
  • This being Canada, a country of chronic apologies that sometimes suffers an inferiority complex when confronted by its swaggering neighbor to the south, the chest-thumping wasn’t exactly loud.
    — Dan Bilefsky, New York Times, 27 Jan. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'inferiority complex.' 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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