(minorities)
Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English.
1.
If you talk about a ~ of people or things in a larger group, you are referring to a number of them that forms less than half of the larger group, usually much less than half.
Local authority nursery provision covers only a tiny ~ of working mothers...
...~ shareholders.
? majority
N-SING: oft N of n
•
If people are in a ~ or in the ~, they belong to a group of people or things that form less than half of a larger group.
Even in the 1960s, politically active students and academics were in a ~...
In the past conservatives have been in the ~.
PHRASE: usu v-link PHR
2.
A ~ is a group of people of the same race, culture, or religion who live in a place where most of the people around them are of a different race, culture, or religion.
...the region’s ethnic minorities...
N-COUNT