Definition of 'minus'
Word forms: plural minuses
4. preposition
To be minus something means not to have that thing.
5. countable noun
6.
See plus or minus
Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
British English pronunciation
American English pronunciation
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Word Frequency
minus in British English
preposition
adjective
Mathematical symbol: –3.
a.
indicating or involving subtraction
a minus sign
6. (postpositive) education
he received a B minus for his essay
7. botany
8.
denoting a negative electric charge
Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
Word origin
C15: from Latin, neuter of minorWord Frequency
minus in American English
preposition
1.
reduced by the subtraction of; less
four minus two
2. Informal
without; lacking
minus a toe
adjective
3.
indicating or involving subtraction
a minus sign
4.
negative
a minus quantity
6. Botany
Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition. Copyright © 2010 by
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
Word Frequency
minus in American English
(ˈmainəs)
preposition
2.
lacking or without
a book minus its title page
adjective
3.
involving or noting subtraction
4.
algebraically negative
a minus quantity
5.
less than; just below in quality
to get a C minus on a test
7. (in heterothallic fungi)
designating, in the absence of morphological differentiation, one of the two strains of mycelia that unite in the sexual process
Most material © 2005, 1997, 1991 by Penguin Random House LLC. Modified entries © 2019
by Penguin Random House LLC and HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Examples of 'minus' in a sentence
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In other languages
minus
British English: minus
/ˈmaɪnəs/ PREPOSITION
You use minus when you take one number away from another number.
Three minus two is one.
- American English: minus /ˈmaɪnəs/
- Arabic: نَاقِصٌ
- Brazilian Portuguese: menos
- Chinese: 没有
- Croatian: manje
- Czech: mínus
- Danish: minus
- Dutch: minus
- European Spanish: menos
- Finnish: miinus
- French: moins
- German: minus
- Greek: μείον
- Italian: meno
- Japanese: ・・・を引いた
- Korean: ...을 뺀
- Norwegian: minus
- Polish: bez minus
- European Portuguese: menos
- Romanian: minus
- Russian: минус
- Latin American Spanish: menos signo de sustracción
- Swedish: minus
- Thai: ลบ
- Turkish: eksi
- Ukrainian: мінус
- Vietnamese: trừ
British English: minus
NOUN /ˈmaɪnəs/
A minus is a disadvantage.
The minuses far outweigh that possible gain.
- American English: minus /ˈmaɪnəs/
- Brazilian Portuguese: sinal de subtração
- Chinese: 不利因素
- European Spanish: desventaja
- French: inconvénient
- German: Nachteil
- Italian: svantaggio
- Japanese: 不利な点
- Korean: 불리한 점
- European Portuguese: sinal de subtração
- Latin American Spanish: desventaja
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Definition of minus from the Collins English Dictionary
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