majority
/məˈd͡ʒɑ.ɹɪti/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.94 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any share or fraction that is bigger than any one of its counterpart shares or fractions (of the same whole).
Countable; Uncountable
noun
In a parliament or legislature, the difference in seats between the ruling party and the opposition; (UK) in an election, the difference in votes between the winning candidate and the second-place candidate, or between the winning candidate and all of the other candidates combined.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The majority agreed that the new proposal was the best."
- "Those opposing the building plans were in the majority, so the building project was canceled."
- "The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice."
- "But in 1912 the American people gave the Democrats another opportunity, and under the leadership of Woodrow Wilson we swept the country from sea to sea. At the end of that historic contest we had the Presidency, the Senate by a working majority, and the House by an overwhelming majority."
- "They and the airline itself described an internal process that requires multiple departments to manually redesign the airline’s schedule – a system that works “the vast majority of the time,” Southwest said in a statement."
- "The ruling party had a narrow three-seat majority in the legislature."
Etymology
From Middle French maiorité, from Medieval Latin maiōritātem, accusative of Latin maiōritās, from Latin maior (“greater”). Morphologically major + -ity.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /məˈd͡ʒɑ.ɹɪti/
- British English: /məˈd͡ʒɒ.ɹɪti/
Usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
- Dated
- British usage