minor

«minor» in Mova's school dictionary: Small or not very important; not serious: «a minor injury» — 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

adjective (minor); noun (a minor, minors)

meaning for a pupil

1) Small or not very important; not serious: «a minor injury». tree →

2) (noun) In law, a person who is not yet an adult (under 18 in many countries). tree →

3) In music, a minor key or chord often sounds sad. tree →

4) (US) A second subject studied at university. tree →

sense in the lessons

In safety and first aid lessons: «minor cuts and scrapes» can be cleaned and covered with a plaster, but serious ones need a doctor. In law and online life: minors cannot buy some things and need a parent's permission. In music lessons: major sounds happy, minor sounds sad. Phrases: «a minor problem», «a minor character» (in a story).

examples

• It was only a minor cut, so Mum put on a plaster. tree →
• There was a minor accident in the car park. tree →
• The shop cannot sell knives to minors. tree →
• This song is in a minor key and sounds sad. tree →
• The dog is a minor character in the book. tree →
• We had a minor problem with the projector. tree →
• Most bumps in the playground are minor. tree →
• Minor punctuation errors (omitted or incorrect punctuation, mismatched quote marks etc.) have been amended without note. tree →

note

Opposite: «major». Noun «minority» means the smaller part of a group. Do not confuse with «miner» (a person who works in a mine), which sounds the same.

In the corpora

• A child flying alone, an unaccompanied minor, stays with the airline staff member who looks after them.
• Pharmacists can give advice and medicines for many minor illnesses, and they send people to a doctor if something seems more serious.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «minor» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.