majority

From Middle French maiorité, from Medieval Latin māiōritātem, accusative of Latin māiōritās, from Latin māiōr (“greater”).

Morphologically major +‎ -ity

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /məˈd͡ʒɒɹɪti/
• (US) IPA^(key): /məˈd͡ʒɑɹɪti/, /məˈd͡ʒɔɹɪti/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒɹɪti

majority (countable and uncountable, plural majorities)

1. More than half (50%) of some group.

   Antonym: minority

   Hyponyms: absolute majority, double majority, qualified majority, silent majority, simple majority, supermajority

   Coordinate term: plurality

   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.

   • 1803, Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution:

     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.

   • 1920, Champ Clark, Democratic Achievement:

     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.

2. 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.

   The ruling party had a narrow three-seat majority in the legislature.

   The winner with 53% had a 6% majority over the loser with 47%.

3. (dated) Legal adulthood, age of majority.

   By the time I reached my majority, I had already been around the world twice.

4. (UK) The office held by a member of the armed forces in the rank of major.

   On receiving the news of his promotion, Charles Snodgrass said he was delighted to be entering his majority.

   • 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 8, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 150:

     He was a captain before he went to the front, and following the Argonne battles he got his majority and the command of the divisional machine-guns.

5. Ancestors; ancestry.
   • 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC:

     Of evil parents an evil generation, a posterity not unlike their majority; of mischievous progenitors, a venomous and destructive progeny.

• Not to be confused with a plurality, i.e. the greatest share of a total (which may be less than half).
• In cases of votes, the terms simple majority or relative majority are used to explicitly clarify a motion needs more votes in support of a proposal than against it; whereas the term absolute majority refers to more than half of all votes cast, including blanks and abstentions.

• Thesaurus:quantifier

• “majority”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “majority”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “majority”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
• majority in Britannica Dictionary