dominant

Pluraldominants

1. 1
   adjective

   Holding the most power, control, or influence over others or over events.

   The dominant political party controlled both houses of the legislature.

   Over centuries, one ruling family stayed dominant across the whole region.

   Similarruling, controlling, powerful, commanding, supreme

   Oppositesubordinate, weak, minor

   Note

   Here power is the point, and the word often sits opposite a word for those under that power. Thomas Babington Macaulay's History of England sets "a dominant race" against "the subject race" and judges how the one treats the other. Keep this apart from the "most common" sense: a dominant party rules, while a dominant industry may simply be the biggest.

2. 2
   adjective

   The most widespread, common, or important among a set of things or ideas.

   English has become the dominant language of international business.

   By the 1990s, personal computers were the dominant form of home technology.

   Similarpredominant, prevailing, prevalent, main, principal

   Oppositeminor, secondary, marginal

3. 3
   adjective

   Preferred and controlled with greater skill than its counterpart, as the right hand of a right-handed person.

   Surgeons rely heavily on the fine control of their dominant hand.

   He gradually regained strength in his dominant arm after the surgery.

   Similarpreferred

4. 4
   nouncountable

   The species or organism that is most prevalent and influential within an ecological community.

   Ecologists identified the beech as the dominant throughout the upland forests.

   After the fire, fast-growing shrubs emerged as the new dominants.

   Note

   Ecology and forestry use the noun for whatever leads a community by abundance or influence, and it often comes in the plural. John R. Bassett's Thinning loblolly pine from above and below (1966) pairs it with codominants, writing of landowners who hesitate to cut "merchantable dominants and codominants." In a forest stand, then, the dominants are the leading individual trees, not only a whole species.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   The partner who takes the controlling role in sadomasochistic sexual activity.

   As the dominant, he was responsible for respecting the agreed limits.

   The two partners discussed boundaries carefully before the dominant took charge.

   Oppositesubmissive

   Note

   Vocabulary from the BDSM community, where it names a role agreed between partners rather than a personality. Its counterpart is submissive, and the two words work as a matched pair: Jayne Rylon's Mistress's Master (2011) speaks of "dominants in training" learning their submissive's needs. The term carries no fixed gender. Wickie Stamps wrote of a "strong butch dominant" in 1988.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   The fifth major tone of a musical scale, lying five steps above the keynote, so that G is that tone in the scale of C.

   She resolved the melody from the dominant to the tonic.

   In D major, the dominant is A.

   Note

   Music's name for the note with the strongest pull toward home: a perfect fifth above the tonic, it acts as a harmonic pole whose tension resolves back to the keynote. The word is relational and usually takes of (G is the dominant of C, A the dominant of D), so the same pitch changes role whenever the key changes.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   The three-note chord formed on the fifth degree of the scale, the dominant tone.

   The progression lands on the dominant before returning home to the tonic.

   She played the dominant with an added seventh for extra tension.

   Note

   In talk about harmony, the bare noun can mean this chord or the single note, and only context separates it from the fifth tone itself. The triad is usually major in quality, and its pull toward the tonic chord drives most cadences in tonal music. A progression that lands here sounds unfinished until it moves home.

8. 8
   adjective

   Relating to or built upon the fifth tone of the scale.

   The piece modulates briefly into the dominant key.

   He added a dominant seventh to sharpen the tension before the cadence.

   Note

   The attributive partner of the fifth tone: it stands before a noun to mark something as built on or belonging to that degree, such as a dominant key, a dominant chord or a dominant seventh. That last chord adds a minor seventh to the triad, sharpening its pull toward the tonic before a cadence.

9. 9
   noun

   Of an allele, producing the same visible trait whether paired with a matching allele or a different one.

   Because the allele is dominant, a single copy produces the trait.

   Huntington's disease is caused by a dominant allele.

   Oppositerecessive

   Note

   Geneticists use it as a label for an allele. Dominance here describes the trait a heterozygote shows, not how common the allele is. That would be the "most prevalent" sense. A dominant allele masks the recessive one at the same locus, so a single copy is enough. R. A. Fisher's The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930) uses the noun too, weighing "disadvantageous dominants" against "disadvantageous recessives."

10. 10
    adjective

    Designating the ovarian follicle that survives while the others degenerate, going on to release an egg at ovulation.

    Ultrasound revealed a dominant follicle ready to ovulate.

    Only the dominant follicle completes maturation, while the rest break down.

    Note

    A fixed medical phrase: in practice the adjective appears in dominant follicle. Atresia is the degeneration that claims the other developing follicles in a cycle. The single follicle that escapes it keeps maturing and finally ruptures to release an oocyte. Its use is clinical, at home in ultrasound reports, and it shares nothing but the word with the genetic meaning.

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