minus

CEFRB1

/ˈmaɪ.nəs/

preposition · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
preposition
Less than a number or amount.
02
noun
The sign or operation showing that one number is taken from another.

Examples

The temperature went down to minus ten degrees centigrade last night.
The thermometer registered minus ten last night.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 2
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Also pronounced

/ˈmɑe.nəs/
/maj.nŭs/

Deep Dive

preposition

Extra meanings

The minus sign (−).
Without; deprived of.
Made less or reduced by (followed by an expression of number or quantity).

More examples

In context

How many is nine minus six?
I walked out minus my coat.
Seven minus two is five.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The temperature outside dropped to blank ten degrees below zero last night.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

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Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

On the third day a Master Barnard brings me up a slate full of plusses, minusses, x, y, z’s, and other letters of the alphabet, in a most amiable algebraical confusion.
1835 January, the Sub-Editor [i.e., Edward Howard], “The Life of a Sub-Editor”, in The Metropolitan Magazine, volume XII, number XLV, London: Saunders and Otley, […], page 427
He valued Roderick’s friendship with the highest value he put on anything nowadays. Over the years they had assessed each other’s plusses and minusses and settled for the difference.
1989, A[udrey] L[ilian] Barker, The Woman Who Talked to Herself, London: Hutchinson, →ISBN, page 111
As with LCR tout court the question is less to do with the plusses and minusses of the individual ideologies in themselves than in their relationship with their opposite numbers, in this case of Reason with Emotion.
2015, Peter Wyeth, “[Commentaries] Reason”, in The Matter of Vision: Affective Neurobiology & Cinema, New Barnet, Herts.: John Libbey Publishing Ltd; Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 113
When Morrison mulls the pluses and minuses associated with rebuking Kelly for undermining the government’s public health messaging, the prime minister faces a genuine substantive dilemma, and that goes to the risks of amplification.
2021 February 2, Katharine Murphy, “Scott Morrison must heed the lesson of Donald Trump and slap down Craig Kelly”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 27 Apr 2021
For example, in solving the following equation, x + 4 = 9, the child using the negating mechanism will reason, "minussing 4" undoes "plussing 4" therefore, if x + 4 = 9 then x = 5 and will not see any point in using any intermediate steps.
1981 March, Kevin F[rancis] Collis, Cognitive Development, Mathematics Learning, Information Processing and a Refocusing, Madison, Wis.: Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Individualized Schooling, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, page 9

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Origin

preposition

From Middle English mynus, from Latin minus, neuter form of minor, comparative form of parvus (“small, little”), from the Proto-Indo-European root *mey- (“few, small”).

Deep Dive

preposition

More examples

Related

Quick test

The temperature outside dropped to blank— ten degrees below zero last night.

Nearby

Origin

preposition

The temperature outside dropped to blank ten degrees below zero last night.