Word.ws English Dictionary

modal

/ˈməʊdəl/US/ˈmoʊdəl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

modal adjective: of, or relating to a mode or modus.

Adjective

modal (comparative more modal, superlative most modal)

  1. Of, or relating to a mode or modus.
  2. Of, relating to, or describing the mood of a clause.
  3. Of, relating to, or composed in the musical modi by which an octave is divided, associated with emotional moods in Ancient — and in medieval ecclesiastical — music.
    1. (broadly) In a mode which is not major or minor scale, the standard modes used in the Western musical tradition.
  4. Of, or relating to the modality between propositions.
  5. Relating to the statistical mode.
  6. Having separate modes in which user input has different effects.
    Antonyms:
    modeless
  7. Requiring immediate user interaction and thus presented so that it cannot be closed or interacted behind until a decision is made.
    • Dialogs can be modal, in which case the user is required to provide necessary information before work in the main window can continue, or modeless. Modeless dialogs do not prevent the user from interacting with any of the other windows in the application.a. 2011, “Dialog Windows”, in Qt Widgets Documentation, archived from the original on 07 Feb 2020
    • a modal dialog; a modal window
    Antonyms:
    modeless
  8. (metaphysics) Relating to the form of a thing rather to any of its attributes.

Noun (1)

modal (plural modals)

  1. A modal (etymology 1, adjective sense 4) proposition.
  2. A modal (etymology 1, adjective sense 2) form, notably a modal auxiliary.
  3. A modal verb.
    • Using the same type of distributional criterion, we could argue that only a Verb (in its base form) can occur in the position marked — in (23) below to complete the sentence:
      (23) They/it can —
      [...]
      Conversely, the only type of word which could be used to begin a three-word sentence such as (25)...1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational Grammar: A First Course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 61
  4. A modal (etymology 1, adjective sense 7) window, one that cannot be closed until a decision is made.
    • Modal screen elements are subtrees which, when activated, disable all elements external to them. Examples of modals are yes-no message boxes and the application itself.1996, OOPSLA '96: Conference on Object-Oriented Programming Systems, Languages, and Applications, volume 31, numbers 10-12

Noun (2)

modal (uncountable)

  1. (fabric) A semi-synthetic fabric, a very soft kind of rayon textile made from beech tree pulp and processed with chemicals.

modal meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Punjabi and Tagalog

modal in Tamil

முகட்டு, துணை வினைச்சொல்

modal in Urdu

نمائشی, ظاہری

modal in Punjabi

ਮੋਡਾਲ

modal in Tagalog

logic: of or relating to the modality between prepositions
palasakin

Examples of modal in a sentence

  • Parts of the UK are experiencing a modal shift towards non-motorized transport.
  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:stacked modal.
  • Equal parts jazz landmark and make-out album, it rewards the listener on every level, and established modal jazz as a sub-genre that is still being explored.

All 31 example sentences with modal

Synonyms of modal

Antonyms

Forms of modal

Adjective
comparativemore modal
superlativemost modal
Noun
pluralmodals

Origin of modal

From Middle French modal, from Medieval Latin modālis (“pertaining to a mode”), from Latin modus (“mode”). Compare to French, Spanish, and Portuguese modal and Italian modale. By surface analysis, mod(e) + -al.

A genericized trademark of Lenzing AG.

Words formed from modal

Phrases with modal

Words that rhyme with modal

Questions about modal

What does modal mean?
Modal means of, or relating to a mode or modus.
What is modal in Tamil?
Modal in Tamil is முகட்டு, துணை வினைச்சொல். See Modal meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is modal?
Modal can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce modal?
Modal is pronounced /ˈməʊdəl/ (UK).

Words near modal in the dictionary

  1. modacrylic
  2. modacrylics
  3. modafinil
  4. modak
  5. modaks
  6. modal
  7. modal adverb
  8. modal adverbs
  9. modal auxiliaries
  10. modal auxiliary
  11. modal case

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: modal (page history and authors); modal (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); modal (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); modal (Punjabi, 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-modal.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-modal.wav.

Cite this entry: “modal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/modal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.