majority
part of speech
noun (a majority, majorities)
meaning for a pupil
1) The bigger part of a group; more than half. tree →
2) The number of votes by which a winner beats others (won by a majority of ten). tree →
3) (formal, law) The age when you are legally an adult. tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths lessons: majority means more than half, so in a class of 30, a majority is at least 16. In voting (class elections): the majority wins. Phrases: the majority of, a large majority, in the majority, majority vote.
examples
- The majority of pupils walk to school. tree →
- The majority voted for a trip to the zoo. tree →
- She won by a majority of five votes. tree →
- In our class, girls are in the majority. tree →
- The vast majority of people were kind. tree →
- A majority of 30 people means at least 16 people. tree →
- Most probably some such thoughts as these discouraged the majority from going out into the world to collect the required information. tree →
note
Countable. "The majority of + plural noun" usually takes a plural verb: "The majority of children like ice cream." For numbers: majority means MORE than half; exactly half is not a majority. Opposite: minority. Trap: "most" and "majority" are similar, but "majority" is for countable groups (the majority of people), not for amounts (not "the majority of the cake").
In the corpora
- In a democracy decisions are often made by voting, and the side with more votes, the majority, wins.
- Majority rule must still protect the rights of the minority; the majority is not always right.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «majority» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.