dominant

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Exercising the most influence or control.
2. adj. Most prominent, as in position; ascendant.
3. adj. Genetics Of, relating to, or being an allele that produces the same phenotypic effect whether inherited with a homozygous or heterozygous allele.
4. adj. Ecology Of, relating to, or being a species that is most characteristic of an ecological community and usually determines the presence, abundance, and type of other species.
5. adj. Music Relating to or based on the fifth tone of a diatonic scale.
6. n. Genetics A dominant allele or trait.
7. n. Ecology A dominant species.
8. n. Music The fifth tone of a diatonic scale.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Exercising rule or chief authority; governing; predominant: as, the dominant party or faction.
2. Hence Having a controlling effect or influence; most conspicuous or effective; overshadowing.
3. n. In music: The reciting tone in Gregorian scales or modes.
4. n. The fifth tone in the modern scales or modes: so called because of its importance in relation to the key-note or tonic.
5. Having the crown free to light on all sides because of greater height. See crown *class.
6. Characterized by or exhibiting dominance. See dominance, 2.
7. n. In biology, when the cross-bred offspring of parents with antagonistic or mutually exclusive characters visibly exhibits a character of one parent, while it does not visibly exhibit but is able to transmit to descendants the antagonistic character of the other parent, then the character which is manifested, and the cross-bred organism
8. n. which exhibits it, and
9. n. those of its descendants which exhibit it, and
10. n. the parental character, and
11. n. the parent that exhibits it, are all called dominants. On the other hand, the parental character which is not visibly manifested by the crossbred organism, but is transmitted to and visibly manifested by some of its descendants and their descendants, is called a recessive, as are also the organisms that exhibit it. See inheritance.
12. n. The greatest of a set of numbers without regard to sign.
13. n. In petrography, in the quantitative classification (see rock), a factor which dominates over another between the ratios and .

Wiktionary

1. n. music The fifth major tone of a musical scale (five major steps above the note in question); thus G is the dominant of C, A of D, and so on.
2. n. music The triad built on the dominant tone.
3. adj. Ruling; governing; prevailing; controlling; as, the dominant party, church, spirit, power.
4. adj. Predominant, common, prevalent, of greatest importance.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Ruling; governing; prevailing; controlling; predominant.
2. n. (Mus.) The fifth tone of the scale; thus G is the dominant of C, A of D, and so on.

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. exercising influence or control
2. n. (music) the fifth note of the diatonic scale
3. adj. most frequent or common
4. adj. (of genes) producing the same phenotype whether its allele is identical or dissimilar
5. n. an allele that produces the same phenotype whether its paired allele is identical or different