Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The smaller in number of two groups forming a whole.
- n. A group or party having fewer than a controlling number of votes.
- n. A racial, religious, political, national, or other group thought to be different from the larger group of which it is part.
- n. A group having little power or representation relative to other groups within a society.
- n. A member of one of these groups. See Usage Note at color.
- n. Law The state or period of being under legal age: still in her minority.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The state of being minor or smaller.
- n. The minor part in number; the smaller of two aggregates into which a whole is divided numerically; a number less than half: opposed to majority.
- n. Specifically The smaller of two related aggregates of persons; the minor division of any whole number of persons: as, the rights of the minority; government by minorities.
- n. The state of being a minor or not come of age, and therefore legally incapacitated for the performance of certain acts; the period or interval before one is of full age, generally the period from birth until twenty-one years of age (see age, 3); in Scots law, the interval between pupilarity and majority. See minor, n., 1.
Wiktionary
- n. politics, government, etc. Empowered by or representing a minority (usually a plurality) of votes cast, legislative seats, etc., rather than an outright majority thereof.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The state of being a minor, or under age.
- n. obsolete State of being less or small.
- n. The smaller number; -- opposed to
majority . - n. Those members of a legislature that belong to the political party which is in the minority in that institution.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any age prior to the legal age
- n. being or relating to the smaller in number of two parts
- n. a group of people who differ racially or politically from a larger group of which it is a part
Etymologies
- From Middle French minorité, and its source Late Latin minoritas, from Latin minor. (Wiktionary)
- French minorité, from Medieval Latin minōritās, from Latin minor, smaller; see minor. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The powerful Socialist and revolutionary minority created in industrial communities by equal suffrage and a democratic form of government, _as long as it remains distinctly a minority_, is unable to injure the combined forces of capitalism, while it furnishes a useful and invaluable club by which the progressive capitalists can threaten and overwhelm the reactionaries.”
Socialism As It Is A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement
“The term minority itself is far more likely to be applied to blacks and Asians than to Jews, even though in a worldwide sense Jews fit the definition far better, and even within the United States are far fewer in number than blacks.”
“So recently in the comments section of my blog, one of my readers said , “can we stop using the term minority now. it is obvious that whites are the minority.””
“March 26th, 2006 at 12:04 am blog, one of my readers said, “can we stop using the term minority now. it is obvious that whites are the minority.””
“I am by no means here to defend the term minority, minorities, or majorities.”
“I was a little sympathetic to the argument, but my definition of the term minority was much broader than the way my student was using it, and I used it in a much broader way then the term is used by the typical American.”
“In sociology (and several other academic disciplines.) the term minority group(s), refers to any group that has less access to power; in other words any group that is underrepresented in the power structure of a country or culture.”
“The San Diego City Council last month voted to strike the word minority from official use.”
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
“I just have to ask, at what point in time do they drop the term minority from their description?”
“Noncontrolling Interests in Consolidated Financial Statements, an amendment of ARB No. 51 the term minority interest has been replaced with noncontrolling interests and the categorization of noncontrolling interests is now shown below net income.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘minority’.
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EU Buzz - ALL words and expressions
A combined list of
1. EU Buzz - single words
2. EU Buzz - collocations
3. EU Buzz - the 100 most active
collocation constituentsabsorption capacity, absorption rate, acceding country, accession candidate, accession countries, accession country, accession criteria, accession cycle, accession negotia..., accession partner..., accession priorities, accession treaty and 2650 more...
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EN - academic vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3119 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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election phrases and words
how election is used,everything
to do with elections,synonymsat or in (one's) ..., doctrine of election, election-address, election-ale, election bun, election cake, election commissi..., election-committee, election-cry, election-day, Election de Clerk, election dinner and 151 more...
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AFCO - fundamental rights
as enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
academic freedom, access, asylum, bargaining, citizen, cloning, cohesion, collective agreement, collective bargai..., confidentiality, conflict of interest, constraint and 357 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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kewpid's Words
moleskine, araldite, dessicate, cellar door, grotesque, fallacy, vendetta, raindrop, panacea, ethereal, hircus, treppenwitz and 446 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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MEC3 Lesson 136
benefit, bias, bound, incompetence, dialect, experiment, forum, minority, participant, pathology, pattern, peer and 4 more...
Tweets
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