minority

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /maɪˈnɒr.ə.ti/, /mɪˈnɒr.ə.ti/, US /maɪˈnɔːr.ə.t̬i/, /mɪˈnɔːr.ə.t̬i/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French minorité, or directly from Medieval Latin minoritas,^[2][3][4] from Latin minor (“less, smaller, junior”).^[2][4] It is related to minor and majority.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The state of being smaller or inferior: 1533 in the OED, the 1530s in Etymonline, a sense now obsolete.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

Being under legal age is from 1547.^[5][2] The smaller number or part of a whole is from 1736,^[2][5] and the smaller party in voting from 1774,^[5] with the sense in politics generally by 1789.^[2] A group set apart from the rest of a community by race, religion or language is from 1919, at first in an Eastern European context, 1921 in the OED.^[2][5] As a modifier, appealing to a minority, as in minority interest, it is from 1930.^[5]

Timeline

• 1533 – being smaller.^[5]
• 1547 – being under age.^[5]
• 1736 – the smaller part.^[2][5]
• 1774 – in voting.^[5]
• 1919 – an ethnic or religious group.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The smaller of two groups or parts.
2. A group whose race, religion or language differs from that of most people in a country.
3. A party or group with fewer than half the votes.
4. (law) The state or time of being under legal age.

Word family

• nonminority
• minority group
• minority leader

Related words

• minor
• majority
• minimum

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press