Minor

[mahy-ner]

adjective
1.
lesser, as in size, extent, or importance, or being or noting the lesser of two:
a minor share.
2.
not serious, important, etc.:
a minor wound; a minor role.
3.
having low rank, status, position, etc.:
a minor official.
4.
under the legal age of full responsibility.
5.
Education. of or relating to a field of study constituting a student’s minor.
6.
Music.

7.
of or relating to the minority.
8.
(initial capital letter) (of two male students in an English public school who have the same surname) being the younger or lower in standing:
Jackson Minor sits over here.
noun
9.
a person under the legal age of full responsibility.
10.
a person of inferior rank or importance in a specified group, class, etc.
11.
Education.

12.
Music. a minor interval, chord, scale, etc.
13.
Mathematics. the determinant of the matrix formed by crossing out the row and column containing a given element in a matrix.
14.
(initial capital letter) .
15.
the minors, Sports. the minor leagues.
verb (used without object)
16.
to choose or study as a secondary academic subject or course:
to major in sociology and minor in art history.
[mahy-ner]
noun
1.
a male given name.
/ˈmaɪnə/
adjective
1.
lesser or secondary in amount, extent, importance, or degree: a minor poet, minor burns
2.
of or relating to the minority
3.
below the age of legal majority
4.
(music)

5.
(logic) (of a term or premise) having less generality or scope than another term or proposition
6.
(US, education) of or relating to an additional secondary subject taken by a student
7.
(immediately postpositive) (Brit) the younger or junior: sometimes used after the surname of a schoolboy if he has an older brother in the same school: Hunt minor
8.
(postpositive) (bell-ringing) of, relating to, or denoting a set of changes rung on six bells: grandsire minor
noun
9.
a person or thing that is lesser or secondary
10.
a person below the age of legal majority
11.
(US & Canadian, education) a subsidiary subject in which a college or university student needs fewer credits than in his or her major
12.
(music) a minor key, chord, mode, or scale
13.
(logic) a minor term or premise
14.
(maths)

15.
(capital) another name for Minorite
verb
16.
(US, education) (intransitive) usually foll by in. to take a minor
adj.

early 13c., menour “Franciscan” (see minor (n.)), from Latin minor “less, lesser, smaller, junior,” figuratively “inferior, less important,” formed as a masculine/feminine form of minus on the mistaken assumption that minus was a neuter comparative, from PIE root *mei- “small” (see minus).

Some English usages are via Old French menor “less, smaller, lower; underage, younger,” from Latin minor. Meaning “underage” is from 1570s. Meaning “lesser” in English is from early 15c.; that of “less important” is from 1620s. The musical sense is from 1690s. In the baseball sense, minor league is from 1884; the figurative extension is first recorded 1926.
n.

early 14c., “a Franciscan,” from Latin Fratres Minores “lesser brethren,” name chosen by St. Francis, who founded the order, for the sake of humility; see minor (adj.). From c.1400 as “minor premise of a syllogism.” From 1610s as “person under legal age” (Latin used minores (plural) for “the young”). Musical sense is from 1797. Meaning “secondary subject of study, subject of study with fewer credits than a major” is from 1890; as a verb in this sense from 1934.

minor mi·nor (mī’nər)
adj.