minus

preposition

1. 1

   Made less or reduced by (followed by an expression of number or quantity).

   Seven minus two is five.

2. 2

   informalWithout; deprived of.

   I walked out minus my coat.

noun

1. 1

   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.

2. 2

   A negative quantity.

3. 3

   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.

   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.

   When Morrison mulls the pluses and minuses associated with rebuking Kelly for undermining the government’s public health messaging, the prime minister faces a genuine substantive dilemma, and that goes to the risks of amplification.

adjective

1. 1

   Being a negative quantity; pertaining to a deficit or reduction.

   a minus number

2. 2

   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).

3. 3

   obsoleteWorse 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 […] .

4. 4

   Ranking just below (a designated rating).

   He got a grade of B minus for his essay.

verb

1. 1

   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.

   (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.)

   Four plus one is 5 and you go down because it's minusing, […]

   “But you also minussed! … Sam… Sam also minussed seventy-two but he also… one hundred forty-four minus seventy-two equals seventy-two. He also minussed the seventy-two.”

Forms

plural

minuses, minusses

past tense

minused, minussed

past participle

minused, minussed

present participle

minusing, minussing

third person singular

minuses, minusses