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It is my intention to wait a few years before I publish any minor poems.
1992, Rudolf M Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page viii:
There is now such an immense "microliterature" on hepatics that, beyond a certain point I have given up trying to integrate (and evaluate) every minor paper published—especially narrowly floristic papers.
1899 October, Edward Pollock Anshutz, Homoepathic Envoy, Vol. 10, No. 8, p. 58:
We now know on authority of Dr. Briggs that every case of vaccination is "a minor case of smallpox," and that every such case of smallpox "should be carefully watched until all danger is passed".
Beethoven's melancholy Moonlight Sonata is scored in the key of C# minor, using the diatonic scale C♯, D♯, E, F♯, G♯, A, and B, but modulates throughout.
1772, William Jones, “On the Arts, Commonly Called Imitative”, in Poems..., page 209:
1843 March, United States Magazine & Democratic Review, page 273:
The first chorus: ‘Behold the Lamb of God’, with its dark minor chords, brings threatening clouds over us.
1880, Edmund Gurney, The Power of Sound, page 271:
Modern harmonists are unwilling to acknowledge that the minor triad is less consonant than the major.
1948 November, J.M. Barbour, “Music and Ternary Continued Fractions”, in American Mathematical Monthly, volume 55, number 9, page 545:
After harmony was introduced into music during the late Middle Ages, major and minortriads emerged as the principal chords. The major triad, as CEG, was regarded with especial favor, because it occurs naturally in the harmonic series, as on bugles, and can be expressed by the simple ratios, 4:5:6. A system of tuning for the diatonic scale known today as just intonation gained support in the 16th century, because its principal triads, CEG, FAC, and GBD, had these just ratios. But an important minortriad, DFA, is harsh in just intonation, and other unsatisfactory triads result when this tuning is extended to the complete chromatic scale.
1951, Carson McCullers, “The Sojourner”, in O. Henry Prize Stories of 1951, page 200:
The first voice of the fugue that Elizabeth had played... came to him, inverted mockingly and in a minor key.
Tufnel: It's part of a trilogy, really, a musical trilogy that I'm doing in D... minor which I always find is really the saddest of all keys, really. I don't know why but it makes people weep instantly to play it... This piece is called "Lick My Love Pump".
He was a moralist in a minor key, more concerned that people should say ‘tinned peaches’ and not ‘tin peaches’, than that they should worry about nucleardisarmament.
1978, John Innes Mackintosh Stewart, Full Term, page 250:
Espionage... was a field that had sophisticated itself since the distant time when Patullo Minor... had enthralled his school-fellows with his hazardous escapades.
1779, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, translated by William Waring, Complete Dictionary of Music, page 243:
The minor perfect mode was marked by one single line which crossed three spaces, and the longue was equal to three breves... The minor imperfect mode was marked by a line which crossed two spaces only, and its longue was equal only to two breves.
1969, Arthur Mendel, "Some Preliminary Attempts at Computer-Assisted Style Analysis in Music", Computers and the Humanities, Vol. 4, No. 1, p. 45:
Josquin works in minor prolation—that is, works in which the signature indicates that a semibreve is equal to two minims, often have a 3 as a medial signature for a few measures, indicating that until the 3 is canceled by the reappearance of a sign for minor prolation, there are to be 3 minims to a semibreve.
And whenever Dre tore her off some money, she always split it up between his kids. She would've felt real minor taking all his cash and spending it on herself, knowing how needy his babies were.
Usage notes
In music and some educated contexts (particularly in borrowings directly from Latin), used as a postpositive: E minor, Friars Minor, Rayburn Minor.
Hinc atque hinc vastae rūpēs, geminīque minantur in caelum scopulī, quōrum sub vertice lātē aequora tūta silent .
On either side of the vast rocky shoreline, twin pinnacles menace in heaven, under whose highpoint the wide, safe waters calm. (Literally, the towering rocks “project into the sky”; poetically, they “menace in heaven” – it is as if the safe harbor is guarded by natural watchtowers.)
12th century, Geoffrey of Monmouth, De Gestis Britonum VI.305-307:
Omnes minantur tibi dicuntque se conducturos Aurelium Ambrosium ex Armorico tractu ut te deposito ipsum in regem promoveant.
They all threaten you, saying they will be bringing from the lands of Brittany Aurelius Ambrosium and when finally dethroned making him in turn the king.
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(adjective) “minor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
(verb) “minor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“minor”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
minor in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
minor in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
to be not yet twenty: minorem esse viginti annis
to be indisposed: leviter aegrotare, minus valere
“minor”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
“minor”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin