Other forms: majors, majored, majoring
Major means big and important — the ones that count, not the small stuff. A major road, a major operation, a major problem you cannot leave until Monday.
Major is also a rank: an army officer above a captain and below a colonel, addressed as Major Hughes. In American universities your major is your main subject, and you major in it — she majored in history. In music, a major key is the bright, settled-sounding one: C major beside the darker C minor. The opposite in every one of these is minor, and the two are worth learning as a pair.
1adjectivemajorLarge, serious or important.~63%
“The storm caused major damage to the harbour wall.”
2nounarmyAn army officer ranking above a captain and below a colonel.~31%
“A major from the engineering corps signed the order.”
3nounstudentThe main subject a student studies at an American university.~2%
“Her major is biology and her minor is Spanish.”
4verbstudyIn major in: to study something as your main university subject.~2%
“He majored in economics and never used a word of it.”
5adjectivemusicIn music, belonging to the scale that sounds bright and settled.~2%
“The tune slips out of the minor key into D major at the chorus.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 18 sentences found in the wild and placed 18 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: significant
Major is Latin maior, the comparative of magnus, 'great, large, noble, important' — so it started out meaning 'greater'. English took it whole, and took a worn-down version through French as well: mayor is the same word twice over. The military rank is a shortening of sergeant major.
Latin
maior
Middle English
major
English, today
major
Built from
From Middle English major, from Latin maior. From Middle English major, from Latin maior, comparative of magnus (“great, large; noble, important”), from Proto-Indo-European méǵh₂yōs (“greater”), comparative of meǵh₂- (“great”). Compare West Frisian majoar (“major”), Dutch majoor (“major”), French majeur. a doublet of mayor. military rank is a shortening of sergeant major, perhaps after Spanish mayor in the same sense.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA