majority

«majority» in Mova's school dictionary: The bigger part of a group; more than half — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

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.