major
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Of greater importance or stature or rank.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mayjerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmeɪdʒɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Of greater importance or stature or rank
Greater in dignity, rank, importance, significance, or interest.
Greater in number or size or amount
Prominent or significant in size, amount, or degree.
Greater in number, quantity, or extent.
Equivalent to that between the tonic and another note of a major scale, and greater by a semitone than the corresponding minor interval. (of an interval)
noun
The principal field of study of a student at a university
A large, commercially successful company, especially a record label that is bigger than an indie.
An officer in charge of a section of band instruments, used with a modifier.
A student at a college or university specializing on a given area of study.
One of the diatonic scales; a group of notes or musical pitches in a particular pattern, used to make melodies. The pattern for a major scale is: tone - tone - semitone - tone - tone - tone - semitone.
In a categorical syllogism, the premise whose terms are the syllogism's major term and middle term.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of greater importance or stature or rank
Used this way, major is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It suits considered writing and prepared speech.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use major
- “The new building project is a major undertaking for the city.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The most important league in any sport (especially baseball).
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The property resulting from being or relating to the greater in number of two parts.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
One of two major fast days on the Jewish calendar.
Any of the major parts of speech of traditional grammar.
A general officer ranking above a brigadier general and below a lieutenant general.
A key whose harmony is based on the major scale.
The most important league in any sport (especially baseball).
A team that plays in a major league.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: principal field of study of a student at a university
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.