modal
/ˈmoʊdəl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.13 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of, relating to, or describing the mood of a clause.
adj
Of, relating to, or composed in the musical modi by which an octave is divided, associated with emotional moods in Ancient — and in medieval ecclesiastical — music.
adj
Of, relating to, or composed in the musical modi by which an octave is divided, associated with emotional moods in Ancient — and in medieval ecclesiastical — music.
adj
Of, or relating to the modality between propositions.
adj
Relating to the statistical mode.
Example Sentences
- "Dialogs can be modal, in which case the user is required to provide necessary information before work in the main window can continue, or modeless. Modeless dialogs do not prevent the user from interacting with any of the other windows in the application."
- "a modal dialog; a modal window"
- "Using the same type of distributional criterion, we could argue that only a Verb (in its base form) can occur in the position marked — in (23) below to complete the sentence: (23) They/it can — [...] Conversely, the only type of word which could be used to begin a three-word sentence such as (25) below: (25) — I be frank? is a Modal: cf. [...]"
- "Modal screen elements are subtrees which, when activated, disable all elements external to them. Examples of modals are yes-no message boxes and the application itself."
Etymology
From Middle French modal, from Medieval Latin modālis (“pertaining to a mode”), from Latin modus (“mode”). Compare to French, Spanish, and Portuguese modal and Italian modale. By surface analysis, mod(e) + -al.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈmoʊdəl/
- British English: /ˈməʊdəl/