minor

English Online Dictionary. What means minor‎? What does minor mean?

English

Alternative forms

• (all): miner, maner, minore, minour, mynor, mynour, mynowr (obsolete)
• (postnominal): mi

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.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmaɪ.nəɹ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmaɪnə/
• Homophones: miner; mynah (non-rhotic)
• Rhymes: -aɪnə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: mi‧nor

Adjective

minor (comparative more minor, superlative most minor)

1. Lesser, smaller in importance, size, degree, seriousness, or significance compared to another option, particularly:

   of minor importance

   a minor poet

   • 1551, Thomas Wilson, The Rule of Reason..., sig. F8:

     Here we se thre proposicions, or sentences, whereof the first is called Maior, that is to saie, the proposicion at large. the seconde is called Minor, that is to saie, the seuerall proposicion. the thirde is called conclusio.

   • 1819 January 2, John Keats, letter:

     It is my intention to wait a few years before I publish any minor poems.
   1. (law) Underage, not having reached legal majority.

   2. (medicine, sometimes figurative) Not serious, not involving risk of death, permanent injury, dangerous surgery, or extended hospitalization.
      • 1899 October, Edward Pollock Anshutz, Homoepathic Envoy, Vol. 10, No. 8, p. 58:

        We now know on authority of Dr. Briggs that every case of vaccination is "a minor case of smallpox," and that every such case of smallpox "should be carefully watched until all danger is passed".

   3. (music) Smaller by a diatonic semitone than the equivalent major interval.
   4. (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.
   5. (Canada, US, education) Of or related to a minor, a secondary area of undergraduate study.

   6. (mathematics) Of or related to a minor, a determinate obtained by deleting one or more rows and columns from a matrix.
   7. (logic) Acting as the subject of the second premise of a categorical syllogism, which then also acts as the subject of its conclusion.

   8. (UK, dated) The younger of two pupils (or the middle of three) with the same surname.
      • c. 1593, Henry Chettle, Kind-harts Dreame, sig. C2:

        He whipt her with a foxes taile, Barnes minor,
        And he whipt her with a foxes taile, Barnes maior.
   9. (music, historical) Of or related to the relationship between the longa and the breve in a score.
   10. (music, historical) Having semibreves twice as long as a minim.
       • 1969, Arthur Mendel, "Some Preliminary Attempts at Computer-Assisted Style Analysis in Music", Computers and the Humanities, Vol. 4, No. 1, p. 45:

         Josquin works in minor prolation—that is, works in which the signature indicates that a semibreve is equal to two minims, often have a 3 as a medial signature for a few measures, indicating that until the 3 is canceled by the reappearance of a sign for minor prolation, there are to be 3 minims to a semibreve.

   11. (politics, obsolete) Of or related to a minority party.
       • 1796 December 27, Thomas Jefferson, letter:

         In every other, the minor will be preferred by me to the major vote.

   12. Having little worth or ability; paltry; mean.
   13. (graph theory) Including both directed and undirected edges.

Usage notes

In music and some educated contexts (particularly in borrowings directly from Latin), used as a postpositive: E minor, Friars Minor, Rayburn Minor.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:insignificant and Thesaurus:small

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “most senses”): major
• (antonym(s) of “legally underage”): grown, adult, mature, of age
• (antonym(s) of “medically unthreatening”): serious, grave, severe, dangerous, fatal, life-threatening, acute (informal)

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

minor (plural minors)

1. (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.
2. A lesser person or thing, a person, group, or thing of minor rank or in the minor leagues.
3. (music) Ellipsis of minor interval, minor scale, minor mode, minor key, minor chord, or minor triad.
4. (Canada, US, education) A formally recognized secondary area of undergraduate study, requiring fewer course credits than the equivalent major.

5. (Canada, US, education, uncommon) A person who is completing or has completed such a course of study.

6. (mathematics) A determinant of a square matrix obtained by deleting one or more rows and columns.
7. (Catholicism) Alternative letter-case form of Minor: a Franciscan friar, a Clarist nun.
8. (logic) Ellipsis of minor term or minor premise.
9. (baseball) Ellipsis of minor league (“the lower level of teams”).
10. (ice hockey) Ellipsis of minor penalty (“a penalty requiring a player to leave the ice for 2 minutes unless the opposing team scores”).
11. (Australian football) Synonym of behind: a one-point kick.
12. (rugby, historical) Ellipsis of minor point (“a lesser score formerly gained by certain actions”).
13. (bridge) Ellipsis of minor suit, a card of a minor suit.
14. (entomology) Any of various noctuid moths in Europe and Asia, chiefly in the Oligia and Mesoligia genera.
15. (entomology) A leaf-cutter worker ant intermediate in size between a minim and a media.
16. (campanology) Changes rung on six bells.
17. (Scots law, obsolete) An adolescent, a person above the legal age of puberty but below the age of majority.
18. (mathematics, rare, obsolete) Synonym of subtrahend, the amount subtracted from a number.
19. (UK, rare, obsolete) The younger brother of a pupil.
20. (graph theory) Short for graph minor

Coordinate terms

• (law): adult
• (Scots law): pupil, adult

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

minor (third-person singular simple present minors, present participle minoring, simple past and past participle minored) (intransitive)

1. Used in a phrasal verb: minor in.

Translations

References

• “minor, adj. and n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.
• “minor”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “minor”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• Minor in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• Miron, Morin, morin

Indonesian

Etymology

From Latin minor.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈminɔr]
• Hyphenation: mi‧nor
• Rhymes: -ɔr

Adjective

minor (comparative lebih minor, superlative paling minor)

1. minor

   Antonym: mayor

Alternative forms

• mineur (unadapted borrowing)

Related terms

Further reading

• “minor” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

Interlingua

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /miˈnor/

Adjective

minor (not comparable)

1. comparative degree of parve: smaller

Adjective

le minor

1. the smallest

Synonyms

• (smallest): minime

Italian

Adjective

minor (apocopated)

1. apocopic form of minore

Anagrams

• normi

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈmɪ.nɔr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈmiː.nor]

Etymology 1

From Proto-Italic *minōs, from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“small, little”). Related to minuō (“to make smaller, to lessen; to grow less”).

Adjective

minor (comparative, neuter minus, positive parvus); third declension

1. comparative degree of parvus:
   1. less, lesser, inferior, smaller
   2. cheaper
   3. younger

Inflection

Third-declension comparative adjective.

Antonyms

• maior

Descendants

Noun

minor m (genitive minōris); third declension

1. subordinate, minor, inferior in rank
2. person under age (e.g. 25 years old), minor
   1. (poetic, in the plural) children; descendants, posterity

Inflection

Third-declension noun.

Etymology 2

From minae (“threats, menaces”) +‎ -ō (verbal suffix). Doublet of minō.

Alternative forms

• minō

Verb

minor (present infinitive minārī, perfect active minātus sum); first conjugation, deponent

1. (literally, poetic) to jut forth, protrude, project, tower
2. (transferred sense) [with dative] to threaten, menace

Conjugation

Derived terms

Descendants

References

• (adjective) “minor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• (verb) “minor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “minor”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "minor", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• minor in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
• “minor”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “minor”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French mineur, from Latin minor.

Adjective

minor m or n (feminine singular minoră, masculine plural minori, feminine and neuter plural minore)

1. minor

Declension

Swedish

Noun

minor

1. indefinite plural of mina