minor
UK /ˈmaɪnə/ · US /ˈmaɪ.nəɹ/ adjective, noun, verb, proper noun
Forms minors minoring minored miner maner minore minour mynor mynour mynowr mi
- adjective Lesser, smaller in importance, size, degree, seriousness, or significance compared to another option, particularly:
- adjective (law) Underage, not having reached legal majority. “The defendant resides at 123 Fake Street with his partner and two minor children.”
- adjective (medicine, sometimes figurative) Not serious, not involving risk of death, permanent injury, dangerous surgery, or extended hospitalization. “She suffered a minor injury.”
- adjective (music) Smaller by a diatonic semitone than the equivalent major interval. “The musical interval between C and E♭ is a minor third while C to E is a major third.”
- adjective (music) Incorporating a minor third interval above the (in scales) tonic or (in chords) root note, (also figurative) tending to produce a dark, discordant, sad, or pensive effect. “Beethoven's melancholy Moonlight Sonata is scored in the key of C# minor, using the diatonic scale C♯, D♯, E, F♯, G♯, A, and B, but modulates throughout.”
- adjective (Canada, US, education) Of or related to a minor, a secondary area of undergraduate study. “The minor requirements only involve about 20 hours of classes.”
- adjective (mathematics) Of or related to a minor, a determinate obtained by deleting one or more rows and columns from a matrix.
- adjective (logic) Acting as the subject of the second premise of a categorical syllogism, which then also acts as the subject of its conclusion. “The minor term of John Stuart Mill's famous syllogism—usually mistakenly credited to Aristotle—is Socrates; the major term is mortal.”
- noun (law) A child, a person who has not reached the age of majority, consent, etc. and is legally subject to fewer responsibilities and less accountability and entitled to fewer legal rights and privileges. “No, he can't get a mortgage or sell the house. He's still a minor. For the most part, he can't sign a legally binding contract.”
- noun A lesser person or thing, a person, group, or thing of minor rank or in the minor leagues. “He plays in the minors.”
- noun (Canada, US, education) A formally recognized secondary area of undergraduate study, requiring fewer course credits than the equivalent major. “I got a minor in English Lit.”
- noun (Canada, US, education, uncommon) A person who is completing or has completed such a course of study. “I became an English minor.”
- noun (mathematics) A determinant of a square matrix obtained by deleting one or more rows and columns.
- noun (Australian football) Synonym of behind: a one-point kick.
- noun (entomology) Any of various noctuid moths in Europe and Asia, chiefly in the Oligia and Mesoligia genera.
- noun (entomology) A leaf-cutter worker ant intermediate in size between a minim and a media.
- verb Used in a phrasal verb: minor in.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
insignificant and Thesaurus:small behind subtrahend child kid youngster shaver nipper small fry tiddler tike tyke fry nestling nonaged underage venial modest small small-scale pocket-size pocket-sized
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English minor, menor, menour, etc., from Latin minor (“lesser; young; young person”) both directly and via Norman and Middle French menor, menour, etc. Doublet of minus but not mini-. Cognate with minister, minify, Minorca, Menshevik, and possibly minnow. Compare Latin minimum and minuō, Old High German minniro, Cornish minow.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Inferior in bulk, degree, importance, etc.; less; smaller; of little account; as, minor divisions of a body.
- adjective Less by a semitone in interval or difference of pitch; as, a minor third. Asia Minor (Geog.), the Lesser Asia; that part of Asia which lies between the Euxine, or Black Sea, on the north, and the Mediterranean on the south.
- noun A person of either sex who has not attained the age at which full civil rights are accorded; an infant; in England and the United States, one under twenty-one years of age.
- noun The minor term, that is, the subject of the conclusion; also, the minor premise, that is, that premise which contains the minor term; in hypothetical syllogisms, the categorical premise. It is the second proposition of a regular syllogism, as in the following: Every act of injustice partakes of meanness; to take money from another by gaming is an act of injustice; therefore, the taking of money from another by gaming partakes of meanness.
Etymology [L., a comparative with no positive; akin to AS. min small, G. minder less, OHG. minniro, a., min, adv., Icel. minni, a., minnr, adv., Goth. minniza, a., mins, adv., Ir. & Gael. min small, tender, L. minuere to lessen, Gr. mi to damage. Cf. Minish, Minister, Minus, Minute.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “minor”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details