Superior and Inferior

Superior means toward the head and inferior means away from the head.

Example: The nose is superior to the mouth and the chin is inferior to the mouth.

Note that the terms cranial and caudal are often used interchangeably with superior and inferior. The terms are also used to reference a structure above or below another reference point. For example, the muscle tissue lies inferior to the skin tissue.

Image 1: Superior and inferior on a human model