Modifies a noun

• service: A new generation of boats is sailing the Red Sea and there are no excuses for second-rate service.

• power: He saw France cut up, partitioned and reduced to the rank of a second-rate power, even to that of an oppressed nation.

• man: In the recent conversions, he asks, " Have we lost a single second-rate man even?

• mind: Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.

• building: A second-rate building, despoiling a first-class archeological site, in a city of world renown.

• boy: In Frank on the Beach, she has him play sex-kitten, sprawled like a second-rate rent boy in the muddy surf at sunset.

Modifying Another Word

• very: His position as a man of wealth might make his alliance of value, but as a lover he was very second-rate.

• not: We should be first-rate women, not second-rate men ' .

• rather: When they are developed tomorrow, I will post them to this site, to replace the rather second-rate ones there at present.

Used with adjective complement

• feel: But, and I think this is the point I've been struggling to grasp, to me it feels second-rate, somehow.