poor relation
Noun
Meaning
poor relation (plural poor relations)
Something neglected or seen as inferior.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Examples
The Christian Democrats always made you feel like the poor relation.
There was really a snobbery from people in film - they did not want people who had come from television. It was the poor relation of show business, and especially situation comedy.
Children's books are often seen as the poor relation of literature. But children are just as demanding as adult readers, if not more so. I should know. I'm a children's writer myself.
A poor relation is the most irrelevant thing in nature, a piece of impertinent correspondence, an odious approximation, a haunting conscience, a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noon-tide of our prosperity. He is known by his knock.
Two weeks later, accompanied by a distant Drummond cousin and poor relation, Dora, or Dodo, Delilah sets sail on a British ship for Mombasa.
Sleuth Emma Cross is a poor relation of the Vanderbilt family, trying to make her way as a journalist at a time when women were only allowed to write about fashions.