major
1. Business a large or important company
2. Music a major key, chord, mode, or scale
3. US, Canadian, Austral, and NZa. the principal field of study of a student at a university, etc.
b. a student who is studying a particular subject as his principal field
4. Law a person who has reached the age of legal majority
5. Logic a major term or premise
6. Musica. (of a scale or mode) having notes separated by the interval of a whole tone, except for the third and fourth degrees, and seventh and eighth degrees, which are separated by a semitone
b. relating to or employing notes from the major scale
c. denoting a specified key or scale as being major
d. denoting a chord or triad having a major third above the root
e. (in jazz) denoting a major chord with a major seventh added above the root
7. Logic constituting the major term or major premise of a syllogism
8. Chiefly US, Canadian, Austral, and NZ of or relating to a student's principal field of study at a university, etc.
9. Brit the elder: used after a schoolboy's surname if he has one or more younger brothers in the same school
10. of full legal age
11. Bell-ringing of, relating to, or denoting a method rung on eight bells
Major
John. born 1943, British Conservative politician: Chancellor of the Exchequer (1989--90); prime minister (1990--97)
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Major
a mode based on the perfect (major) triad, as well as the modal coloring (mood) of this triad. The major, both as a triad coinciding with the lower tones of the natural scale and as a mode based on the natural scale, has a joyous sound, in direct contrast to the minor. The contrast between major and minor is one of the most important aesthetic contrasts in music.
Major
a military rank of field officers in the armed forces of the USSR and other states.
The rank of major existed in the Russian Army from 1698 to 1731 and from 1798 to 1884; from 1731 to 1798 there were two ranks—first major and second major. In the armed forces of the USSR the military rank of major was introduced on Sept. 22, 1935. In the Navy of the USSR the rank of captain third rank corresponds to the rank of major.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.