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• minor
  minor

  adjective

  lesser, as in size, extent, or importance, or being or noting the lesser of two.
• Minor
  Minor

  noun

  a male given name.

minor

¹ American  

[mahy-ner] / ˈmaɪ nər /

adjective

1. lesser, as in size, extent, or importance, or being or noting the lesser of two.

   a minor share.

   Synonyms:

   subordinate, secondary, inferior

   Antonyms:

   major

2. not serious, important, etc..

   a minor wound; a minor role.

3. having low rank, status, position, etc..

   a minor official.

   Synonyms:

   small, unimportant, petty

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.

   1. (of an interval) smaller by a chromatic half step than the corresponding major interval.

   2. (of a chord) having a minor third between the root and the note next above it.

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.

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noun

• minors
  plural

1. a person under the legal age of full responsibility.

   Synonyms:

   adolescent, child

2. a person of inferior rank or importance in a specified group, class, etc.

3. Education.

   1. a subject or a course of study pursued by a student, especially a candidate for a degree, subordinately or supplementarily to a major or principal subject or course.

   2. a subject for which less credit than a major is granted in college or, occasionally, in high school.

4. Music. a minor interval, chord, scale, etc.

5. Mathematics. the determinant of the matrix formed by crossing out the row and column containing a given element in a matrix.

6. (initial capital letter) Friar Minor.

7. Sports. the minors, the minor leagues.

verb (used without object)

• minors,
  present (3rd person singular)
• minored,
  past participle,  past
• minoring
  present participle

1. to choose or study as a secondary academic subject or course.

   to major in sociology and minor in art history.

Minor ² American  

[mahy-ner] / ˈmaɪ nər /

noun

1. a male given name.

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minor British  

/ 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

   1. (of a scale) having a semitone between the second and third and fifth and sixth degrees ( natural minor ) See also harmonic minor scale melodic minor scale

   2. (of a key) based on the minor scale

   3. (postpositive) denoting a specified key based on the minor scale

      C minor

   4. (of an interval) reduced by a semitone from the major

   5. (of a chord, esp a triad) having a minor third above the root

   6. (esp in jazz) of or relating to a chord built upon a minor triad and containing a minor seventh See also minor key minor mode

      a minor ninth

5. logic (of a term or premise) having less generality or scope than another term or proposition

6. education of or relating to an additional secondary subject taken by a student

7. (immediately postpositive) 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) Leisure:Bell-ringing of, relating to, or denoting a set of changes rung on six bells

   grandsire minor

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noun

1. a person or thing that is lesser or secondary

2. a person below the age of legal majority

3. education a subsidiary subject in which a college or university student needs fewer credits than in his or her major

4. music a minor key, chord, mode, or scale

5. logic a minor term or premise

6. maths

   1. a determinant associated with a particular element of a given determinant and formed by removing the row and column containing that element

   2. Also called: cofactor.   signed minor.  the number equal to this reduced determinant

7. (capital) another name for Minorite

verb

1. education to take a minor

Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• minors
  plural

Participles

• minoring
  present
• minored
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• minor
  simple
• minors
  simple
• have minored
  perfect
• has minored
  perfect
• am minoring
  progressive
• are minoring
  progressive
• is minoring
  progressive
• have been minoring
  perfect progressive
• has been minoring
  perfect progressive

Past

• minored
  simple
• had minored
  perfect
• was minoring
  progressive
• were minoring
  progressive
• had been minoring
  perfect progressive

Future

• will minor
  simple
• will have minored
  perfect
• will be minoring
  progressive
• will have been minoring
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of minor

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Latin: “less, smaller”; akin to Old English min “small,” Old Norse minni “smaller,” Gothic minniza “younger,” Sanskrit mīnāti “(he) diminishes”

Explanation

Something that's minor is considered of low importance — a minor injury is not very serious, and a college student's minor subject is a secondary field of study. Likewise, the star constellation Ursa Major is a larger grouping than Ursa Minor. The word minor has retained its spelling from the Latin. There, minor means something "lesser," and is related to the Latin word minuere, which means "to diminish." It is usually used as an adjective, but as a noun it gained the meaning "underage" in the 16th Century, and is now used to refer to children and teens under the age of legal responsibility. It is also used in musical terms to refer to a key that has a flatted third in its scale.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

minor Minor minors minored minoring

A report into the incident, which Harrowing partially read to the inquest, said 56 people had been seriously injured, 23 suffered minor injuries and one man - Kitchen - had died.

From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026

To investigate, the researchers analyzed the genomes of three Clusia species with different CAM phenotypes: Clusia rosea, Clusia minor, and Clusia major.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 23, 2026

Knowing academia and the speed at which it tends to move, I interpreted “talk about teaching” as something closer to perhaps someday, pending several committees and a minor geological event.

From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2026

I felt a little like an unaccompanied minor with this service and it wasn’t worth $400 to me.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

Label the half steps and whole steps of the A minor scale.

From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin

The Daily Minor Planet project allows volunteers to help search for asteroids and comets that could potentially pose a threat to Earth.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026

"There were some major things like seven Georgian houses in Minor Canon Row just outside the cathedral, accommodation for staff, clergy, and an organist's house," he says.

From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2026

Minor materials, such as rare earths, tungsten and uranium, are small in volume but critical in value, they note.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 17, 2026

Minor coastal flooding is also possible in low-lying areas, as high astronomical tides of 7.5 to 7.9 feet are expected each evening through Monday, according to the weather service.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 13, 2026

News traveled fast, and even the Ursa Minor girls had come over to take a look.

From "The Marvellers" by Dhonielle Clayton

The school students, both minors, were stopped in Jamui district on 19 September.

From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026

“Primetime” reconsiders the early 2000s NBC hit about sting operations targeting adults pursuing minors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026

Following the shooting on Friday, Reynaldo Tamayo, the South Cotabato governor, urged adult gun owners to "be responsible in storing firearms" and ensuring that minors do not get access to them.

From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026

The EU laid out plans Thursday for strict age limits for children to access social media, games and AI assistants -- and on forcing companies to make platforms safe before minors use them.

From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026

“We’re not minors, neither of us. We’re just shorter than average adults. And we moisturize our faces every hour on the hour, so we don’t wrinkle.”

From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell

“I’m a rule-follower,” said Fudge, who majored in mechanical engineering and minored in math.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026

Tabussam, who minored in “resistance to genocide,” suggested her opponents were mistaken about her views and her studies.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2024

I minored in women’s and gender studies as an undergraduate at New York University; as a law student at the same institution, I took courses in feminist jurisprudence and women’s rights in Islamic law.

From Slate ● Dec. 14, 2023

He majored in communications and minored in English, with a goal of anchoring “SportsCenter” someday.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 31, 2023

“I minored in Spanish in college, sweetheart. I did a semester here. It’s where I met your dad...You know this!”

From "Marcus Vega Doesn't Speak Spanish" by Pablo Cartaya

There, I was a drama major, minoring in a little bit of everything.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2025

“Right now, I’m a full-time student. I’m majoring in biology, minoring in computer science. My big goal is to become an astro microbiologist for NASA, so essentially looking for aliens.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2024

She is majoring in TV and film and minoring in political science, and she recently spent two weeks focused on final exams.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 26, 2023

After majoring in philosophy and minoring in religion, he graduated in 1972.

From New York Times ● Oct. 28, 2022

Hensien is majoring in marketing and minoring in entrepreneurship and expects to get her degree this summer.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 28, 2022

Related Words

• adolescent
• baby
• boy
• child
• girl
• infant
• junior
• juvenile
• teenager
• youngster
• youth