Crossword clues for plurality
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Plurality \Plu*ral"i*ty\, n.; pl. pluralities. [L. pluralitas: cf. F. pluralit['e].]
The state of being plural, or consisting of more than one; a number consisting of two or more of the same kind; as, a plurality of worlds; the plurality of a verb.
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The greater number; a majority; also, the greatest of several numbers; in elections, the excess of the votes given for one candidate over those given for another, or for any other, candidate. When there are more than two candidates, the one who receives the plurality of votes may have less than a majority. See Majority.
Take the plurality of the world, and they are neither wise nor good.
--L'Estrange. -
(Eccl.) See Plurality of benefices, below.
Plurality of benefices (Eccl.), the possession by one clergyman of more than one benefice or living. Each benefice thus held is called a plurality. [Eng.]
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., "state of being plural," from Old French pluralite (14c.), from Late Latin pluralitatem (nominative pluralitas), from Latin pluralis (see plural). Meaning "fact of there being many, multitude" is from mid-15c. Church sense of "holding of two or more offices concurrently" is from mid-14c. Meaning "greater number, more than half" is from 1570s but is etymologically improper, perhaps modeled on majority. U.S. sense of "excess of votes over rival candidate(s)," especially when none has an absolute majority, is from 1828.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context uncountable English) The state of being plural. 2 (context ecclesiastical English) The holding of multiple benefices. 3 (context countable English) A state of being numerous. 4 (context countable English) A number or part of a whole which is greater than any other number or part, but not necessarily a majority. 5 (context countable English) A number of votes for a single candidate or position which is greater than the number of votes gained by any other single candidate or position voted for, but which is less than a majority of valid votes cast. 6 (context countable English) A margin by which a number exceeds another number, especially of votes. 7 (context countable English) A group of many entities: a large number. 8 (context countable English) A group composed of more than one entity. 9 (context of spouses English) polygamy.
WordNet
n. the state of being plural; "to mark plurality, one language may add an extra syllable to the word whereas another may simply change the vowel in the existing final syllable"
a large indefinite number; "a battalion of ants"; "a multitude of TV antennas"; "a plurality of religions" [syn: battalion, large number, multitude, pack]
(in an election with more than 2 options) the number of votes for the candidate or party receiving the greatest number (but less that half of the votes) [syn: relative majority]
Wikipedia
A plurality vote (in North America) or relative majority (in England) describes the circumstance when a candidate or proposition polls more votes than any other, but does not receive a majority. For example, if 100 votes were cast, including 45 for Candidate A, 30 for Candidate B and 25 for Candidate C, then Candidate A received a plurality of votes but not a majority. In some votes, the winning candidate or proposition may have only a plurality, depending on the rules of the organization holding the vote.
Plurality Ltd. is an Israeli semiconductor company, the developer of the HyperCore technology and the HAL (HyperCore Architecture Line) multi-core processor. The company is a member of the Multicore Association.
Plurality can refer to:
- Plural, in linguistics
- Plurality opinion, in a decision by a multi-member court, an opinion held by more judges than any other but not by an overall majority
- Plurality (voting), the most votes for any choice in an election, but not necessarily a majority
- Plurality voting system, also called "first past the post"
- Plurality-at-large voting, commonly referred to as block voting or bloc voting
- Plurality (company), Israeli startup
- Plurality (church governance), a type of Christian church polity
- Plurality, ancient Greek pluralist philosophers in ontological pluralism
- Plurality, one of the "twelve pure concepts of the understanding" proposed by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason
- Plurality, the holding of more than one benefice
Usage examples of "plurality".
It is absurd to seek such a plurality by distinguishing between potentiality and actuality in the case of immaterial beings whose existence is in Act--even in lower forms no such division can be made and we cannot conceive a duality in the Intellectual-Principle, one phase in some vague calm, another all astir.
Nor are we warranted in affirming a plurality of Intellectual Principles on the ground that there is one that knows and thinks and another knowing that it knows and thinks.
If we are answered that the distinction is merely a process of our thought, then, at once, the theory of a plurality in the Divine Hypostasis is abandoned: further, the question is opened whether our thought can entertain a knowing principle so narrowed to its knowing as not to know that it knows--a limitation which would be charged as imbecility even in ourselves, who if but of very ordinary moral force are always master of our emotions and mental processes.
For the Universe is not a Principle and Source: it springs from a source, and that source cannot be the All or anything belonging to the All, since it is to generate the All, and must be not a plurality but the Source of plurality, since universally a begetting power is less complex than the begotten.
Body must necessarily be a plurality, since all bodies are composite of Matter and Quality.
The One never becomes many--as the existence of species demands--unless there is something distinct from it: it cannot of itself assume plurality, unless we are to think of it as being broken into pieces like some extended body: but even so, the force which breaks it up must be distinct from it: if it is itself to effect the breaking up--or whatever form the division may take--then it is itself previously divided.
We assert, then, a plurality of Existents, but a plurality not fortuitous and therefore a plurality deriving from a unity.
We then ask whether the plurality here consists of the Reason-Principles of the things of process.
This is the mode in which this unity is a plurality, its plurality being revealed by the effect it has upon the external.
In sum, the unity exhibited in Being on the one hand approximates to Unity-Absolute and on the other tends to identify itself with Being: Being is a unity in relation to the Absolute, is Being by virtue of its sequence upon that Absolute: it is indeed potentially a plurality, and yet it remains a unity and rejecting division refuses thereby to become a genus.
This indeed is why we posit that which transcends Being, since Being and Substance cannot but be a plurality, necessarily comprising the genera enumerated and therefore forming a one-and-many.
Intellect perceives the variety and plurality of the Forms present in the complete Living Being.
This intellect, then, to which we ascribe perception, though not divorced from the prior in which it originates, evolves plurality out of unity and has bound up with it the principle of Difference: it therefore takes the form of a plurality-in-unity.
Form going out into extension, into plurality, that Prior, as the source of Form, must be itself without shape and Form: if the Prior were a Form, the Intellectual-Principle itself could be only a Reason-Principle.
Now a plurality thus concentrated like the Intellectual Kosmos is close upon The First--and reason certifies its existence as surely as that of soul--yet, though of higher sovereignty than soul, it is not The First since it is not a unity, not simplex as unity, principle over all multiplicity, must be.