minority

noun

Simple meaning

A group of people seen as distinct who are subordinated and discriminated against in a society.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

mynawruhtee

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

maɪˈnɔɹəti

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

Any subgroup that does not form a numerical majority.
sociology
A group of people seen as distinct who are subordinated and discriminated against in a society.
us
A member of an ethnic minority.
The state or condition of being smaller, inferior, or subordinate to something or someone else; lesserness.
The state of being a minor; youth, the period of a person's life prior to reaching adulthood.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency: Common
Typical Use: General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: (sociology) A group of people seen as distinct who are subordinated and discriminated against in a society.

Used this way, minority is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Neutral
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Moderately common
Connotation: Matter-of-fact
Usage feel: Neutral and straightforward

Nearby words

nonage , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use minority

“When the vote was taken they were in the minority.”noun

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Seen

minority status

Relating

small minority

Ethnic

minority ethnic

Other combinations

minority groupminority reportminority interestminority leaderminority language

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

minority leadernounCompound term
Leader of the minority party in a legislature.
ethnic minoritynounCompound term
A group that has different national or cultural traditions from the majority of the population.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: any subgroup that does not form a numerical majority

nonageRare

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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.