adjective. Lesser or smaller in amount, extent, or size.

adjective. Lesser in importance, rank, or stature.

adjective. Lesser in seriousness or danger.

adjective. Not having reached legal adulthood.

adjective. Relating to or being the younger or junior of two pupils with the same surname.

adjective. Of or relating to a secondary area of academic specialization.

adjective. Dealing with a more restricted category.

adjective. undefined

adjective. Relating to or being a minor scale.

adjective. Less in distance by a half step than the corresponding major interval.

adjective. Based on a minor scale.

noun. One that is lesser in comparison with others of the same class.

noun. One who has not reached legal adulthood.

noun. undefined

noun. A secondary area of specialized academic study, requiring fewer courses or credits than a major.

noun. One studying in a secondary area of specialization.

noun. undefined

noun. A minor premise.

noun. A minor term.

noun. A minor key, scale, or interval.

noun. The minor leagues of a sport, especially baseball.

intransitive verb. To pursue academic studies in a minor field.

Smaller (than the other); less; lesser: applied definitively to one of two units or parts, and opposed to major or greater: as, the minor axis of an ellipse: the minor premise of a syllogism; the minor part of an estate.

Smaller than others; of inferior rank or degree; lower; hence, small; inconsiderable; not capital, serious, or weighty: as, the minor officers of government; a minor canon; the minor points of an argument; minor faults or considerations.

Under age.

In music: Of intervals, less; shorter; smaller (as compared with major intervals).

Of tonalities and scales, characterized by a minor third and also usually by a minor sixth, and often a minor seventh: opposed to major. See key, tonality, scale

of triads and chords generally, characterized by a minor third between the lowest and the next to the lowest tones: opposed to major. See triad, and chord

Of modes, characterized by the use of a minor tonality and of minor cadences: as, the piece is written throughout in the minor mode: opposed to major. See major

noun. A person of either sex who is under age; one who is of less than the legal age for the performance of certain acts; one under the authority of parents or guardians, because of not having reached the age at which the law permits one to make contracts and manage one's own property; an infant in the legal sense

noun. In logic, the minor term, or the minor premise. See I.

noun. In music, the minor mode or a minor tonality or minor chord taken absolutely.

noun. [capitalized] A Franciscan friar; a Minorite: so called from a name of the Franciscan order, Fratres Minores, or Lesser Brethren. Also called Friar Minor.

adjective. Inferior in bulk, degree, importance, etc.; less; smaller; of little account.

adjective. Less by a semitone in interval or difference of pitch.

adjective. the Lesser Asia; that part of Asia which lies between the Euxine, or Black Sea, on the north, and the Mediterranean on the south.

adjective. that mode, or scale, in which the third and sixth are minor, -- much used for mournful and solemn subjects.

adjective. the rank of persons employed in ecclesiastical offices who are not in holy orders, as doorkeepers, acolytes, etc.

adjective. The form of the minor scale is various. The strictly correct form has the third and sixth minor, with a semitone between the seventh and eighth, which involves an augmented second interval, or three semitones, between the sixth and seventh, as, 6/F, 7/G♯, 8/A. But, for melodic purposes, both the sixth and the seventh are sometimes made major in the ascending, and minor in the descending, scale, thus: -- [1913 Webster] [1913 Webster] See Major.

adjective. the subject of the conclusion.

noun. A person of either sex who has not attained the age at which full civil rights are accorded; an infant; in England and the United States, one under twenty-one years of age.

noun. The minor term, that is, the subject of the conclusion; also, the minor premise, that is, that premise which contains the minor term; in hypothetical syllogisms, the categorical premise. It is the second proposition of a regular syllogism, as in the following: Every act of injustice partakes of meanness; to take money from another by gaming is an act of injustice; therefore, the taking of money from another by gaming partakes of meanness.

noun. A Minorite; a Franciscan friar.

adjective. Of little significance or importance.

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

adjective. being the smaller of the two intervals denoted by the same ordinal number

noun. A person who is below the legal age of responsibility or accountability.

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

noun. determinant of a square submatrix

verb. To choose or have an area of secondary concentration as a student in a college or university.

"This interval between the first and third tones consists of four half-steps in the major scale and of three half-steps in the minor scale and this difference in size has given rise to the designation _major_ for the scale having the larger third, and _minor_ for the scale having the smaller one."