Mi"nor (?), a. [L., a comparative with no positive; akin to AS. min small, G. minder less, OHG. minniro, a., min, adv., Icel. minni, a., minnr, adv., Goth. minniza, a., mins, adv., Ir. & Gael. min small, tender, L. minuere to lessen, Gr. , Skr. mi to damage. Cf. Minish, Minister, Minus, Minute.]
1. Inferior in bulk, degree, importance, etc.; less; smaller; of little account; as, minor divisions of a body.
2. Mus. Less by a semitone in interval or difference of pitch; as, a minor third.
Asia Minor Geog., the Lesser Asia; that part of Asia which lies between the Euxine, or Black Sea, on the north, and the Mediterranean on the south. -- Minor mode Mus., that mode, or scale, in which the third and sixth are minor, -- much used for mournful and solemn subjects. -- Minor orders Eccl., the rank of persons employed in ecclesiastical offices who are not in holy orders, as doorkeepers, acolytes, etc. -- Minor scale Mus. The form of the minor scale is various. The strictly correct form has the third and sixth minor, with a semitone between the seventh and eighth, which involves an augmented second interval, or three semitones, between the sixth and seventh, as, 6/F, 7/G♯, 8/A. But, for melodic purposes, both the sixth and the seventh are sometimes made major in the ascending, and minor in the descending, scale, thus: --
See Major. -- Minor term of syllogism Logic, the subject of the conclusion.
© Webster 1913.
Mi"nor (?), n. 1. A person of either sex who has not attained the age at which full civil rights are accorded; an infant; in England and the United States, one under twenty-one years of age.
⇒ In hereditary monarchies, the minority of a sovereign ends at an earlier age than of a subject. The minority of a sovereign of Great Britain ends upon the completion of the eighteenth year of his age.
2. Logic The minor term, that is, the subject of the conclusion; also, the minor premise, that is, that premise which contains the minor term; in hypothetical syllogisms, the categorical premise. It is the second proposition of a regular syllogism, as in the following: Every act of injustice partakes of meanness; to take money from another by gaming is an act of injustice; therefore, the taking of money from another by gaming partakes of meanness.
3. A Minorite; a Franciscan friar.
© Webster 1913. | 
