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# minority

«minority» in Mova's school dictionary: **the smaller number or part of a group, less than half** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a minority, minorities; minority as an adjective)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A minority is the smaller number or part of a group, less than half. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/minority/#m1)

2) A minority (group) is a group of people who are different in race, religion, language or culture from most people in a country. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/minority/#m2)

3) (law) The time when a person is still a child in law (under eighteen in most places). [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/minority/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In maths and data lessons, «a minority» means fewer than half: if 8 of 30 pupils like sprouts, they are a minority. In citizenship lessons, laws protect the rights of minorities. In voting, the minority loses but should still be respected. Phrases: «in the minority», «a small minority», «ethnic minority», «minority language», «minority government».

### examples

- Only a minority of the class wanted to stay inside. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/minority/#x1)
- People who like broccoli are in the minority here. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/minority/#x2)
- Welsh is a minority language in the UK. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/minority/#x3)
- The law protects religious minorities. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/minority/#x4)
- A small minority of fans behaved badly. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/minority/#x5)
- If 12 out of 30 children chose red, red was the choice of a minority. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/minority/#x6)
- The party formed a minority government. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/minority/#x7)

### note

Countable; plural «minorities». Opposite: majority (more than half). Maths: a minority is less than 50 per cent of the whole; with exactly half, there is no majority or minority. A minority is not less important.

### In the corpora

- [Majority rule must still protect the rights of the minority; the majority is not always right.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/religion-ethics/49-rights-duties-and-community/10/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «minority» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/minority/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.