minus
UK/ˈmaɪ.nəs/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/ˈmɑe.nəs/
minus preposition: made less or reduced by (followed by an expression of number or quantity).
Preposition
minus
Noun
minus (plural minuses or minusses)
- The minus sign (−).
- 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
- A negative quantity.
- A downside or disadvantage.
- 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...
Adjective
minus (not comparable)
- Being a negative quantity; pertaining to a deficit or reduction.
- a minus number
- That is below zero by (a specified amount) on a scale.
- minus seven degrees
- Arriving during late spring in the satellite's southern hemisphere, Voyager found the coldest body in the solar system, minus 235°C (-391°F).1990 August, Rick Gore, “Neptune: Voyager's Last Picture Show”, in National Geographic, volume 178, number 2, page 42
- Synonyms:
- below zero
- Worse off than before; out of pocket.
- The races being finished, we left Epsom for London, Mordaunt's natural vile temper not being at all improved by being three hundred pounds minus by the week's speculation […] .1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 301
- Ranking just below (a designated rating).
- He got a grade of B minus for his essay.
Verb
minus (third-person singular simple present minuses or minusses, present participle minusing or minussing, simple past and past participle minused or minussed)
- To subtract.
- 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...
- (The terms positive and negative feedback are now part of everyday language where the meanings are reversed: in cybernetic systems, positive feedback is undesirable for it indicates that the discrepancy is “plussing,” rather than “minussing” to zero.)1990, William T. Scott, “Systems and structures”, in The Possibility of Communication (Approaches to Semiotics; 87), Berlin; New York, N.Y.: Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 38
Proper noun capitalized: Minus
Minus (plural Minuses)
- A surname.
minus meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
minus in Hindi
- mathematics: less
- कम kam, घटाकर ghaṭākar
minus in Tamil
- mathematics: less
- கழித்தல் kaḻittal
minus in Marathi
- mathematics: less
- कमी kamī
minus in Urdu
- mathematics: less
- منفی
More languagesFewer languages
- minus in Bengali
- বিয়োগ biẏōg
- minus in Telugu
- మైనస్, మైనస్ చేయండి
- minus in Malayalam
- കുറവായ, പൂജ്യത്തേക്കാൾ കുറവായ, കമ്മിയായ, ന്യൂനമായ
- minus in Kannada
- ಋಣಪರಿಮಾಣ, ಋಣಸಂಖ್ಯೆ, ವ್ಯವಕಲನದ ಚಿಹ್ನೆ
- minus in Gujarati
- માઈનસ, માઇનસ
- minus in Odia
- ମାଇନସ୍
- minus in Sanskrit
- ऊन ūná
- minus in Nepali
- माइनस, माइनस गर्नुहोस्
- minus in Tagalog
- bawas
- minus in Arabic
- نَاقَص nāqaṣ, سَالِب sālib
- minus in Malay
- tolak
- minus in Indonesian
- dikurangi
- minus in Persian
- منها menhâ
- minus in Thai
- ลบ lóp
- minus in Vietnamese
- trừ
Examples of minus in a sentence
- Four plus one is 5 and you go down because it's minusing, […]2011, Laura Christine Bofferding, Expanding the Numerical Central Conceptual Structure:
- “But you also minussed! … Sam… Sam also minussed seventy-two but he also… one hundred forty-four minus seventy-two equals seventy-two.2012, Jennifer S. Thom, “Opening Mathematical Spaces of Their Own”, in Re-Rooting the Learning Space: Minding Where Children’s Mathematics...
Synonyms of minus
- less
- lacking
- without
- below zero
- defect
- deficiency
- drawback
- flaw
- shortcoming
- negative
Antonyms
Forms of minus
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | minuses |
| plural | minusses |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | minuses |
| third-person singular present | minusses |
| present participle | minusing |
| present participle | minussing |
| past participle | minused |
| past | minused |
| past participle | minussed |
| past | minussed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Minuses |
Origin of minus
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”).
Unexplained.
Words formed from minus
Phrases with minus
Words that rhyme with minus
Questions about minus
- What does minus mean?
- Minus means made less or reduced by (followed by an expression of number or quantity).
- What is minus in Hindi?
- Minus in Hindi is कम (kam), घटाकर (ghaṭākar). See Minus meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use minus in a sentence?
- Four plus one is 5 and you go down because it's minusing, […]
- What part of speech is minus?
- Minus can be a preposition, a noun, an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce minus?
- Minus is pronounced /ˈmaɪ.nəs/ (UK).
Words near minus in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: minus (page history and authors); Minus (page history and authors); minus (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); minus (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); minus (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); minus (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); minus (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ऊन (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); minus (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-minus.ogg.
Cite this entry: “minus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/minus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.