minor

• minour (obsolete)

From Latin minor (“rather small”)

• (non-rhotic) IPA^(key): /ˈmaɪnə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmaɪnɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophones: miner, mynah (non-rhotic accents)
• Rhymes: -aɪnə(ɹ)

minor (comparative more minor, superlative most minor)

1. Of little significance or importance.

   The physical appearance of a candidate is a minor factor in recruitment.

   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page viii:

     There is now such an immense "microliterature" on hepatics that, beyond a certain point I have given up trying to integrate (and evaluate) every minor paper published—especially narrowly floristic papers.

2. (music) Of a scale which has lowered scale degrees three, six, and seven relative to major, but with the sixth and seventh not always lowered

   a minor scale

3. (music) being the smaller of the two intervals denoted by the same ordinal number

• See also Thesaurus:insignificant
• See also Thesaurus:small

• major

• (music): minor interval, minor key, minor mode, minor scale, natural minor scale, A minor, etc.

minor (plural minors)

1. A person who is below the legal age of majority, consent, criminal responsibility or other adult responsibilities and accountabilities.

   It is illegal to sell weapons to minors under the age of eighteen.

2. A subject area of secondary concentration of a student at a college or university, or the student who has chosen such a secondary concentration.

   I had so many credit hours of English, it became my minor.

   I became an English minor.

3. (mathematics) determinant of a square submatrix
4. (British slang, dated) A younger brother (especially at a public school).
5. (zoology) A small worker in a leaf-cutter ant colony, sized between a minim and a media.
6. (logic) The term of a syllogism which forms the subject of the conclusion.

• (law): underage (adjective)

• (law): adult
• major

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

1. To choose or have an area of secondary concentration as a student in a college or university.
   • I had so many credit hours of English, I decided to minor in it.

• Minor on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Minor in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

• Miron, Morin, morin

• IPA^(key): /miˈnor/

minor (not comparable)

1. (comparative degree of parve) smaller

le minor

1. the smallest

• (smallest): minime

minor

1. Apocopic form of minore

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈmi.nor/, [ˈmɪ.nɔr]

• Audio (Classical)

  (file)

See minuō.

minor (neuter minus); third declension

1. comparative of parvus; lesser, inferior, smaller

Third declension, comparative variant

• māior

minor m (genitive minōris); third declension

1. subordinate
2. (in the plural) descendants

Third declension.

From mina (“a threat”).

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

1. I jut forth, protrude, project
2. (with dative) I threaten, menace someone with something

• mināx
• minitor

• (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, 1883–1887)
• minor in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to be not yet twenty: minorem esse viginti annis
    
  • to be indisposed: leviter aegrotare, minus valere
    
• 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

minor

1. indefinite plural of mina