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# dominant

adjective (dominant; more dominant, most dominant); noun (a dominant — music, rare)

«dominant» in the English dictionary: everyday — its meanings, how the lessons use it, and examples, each with its tree on Mova.

## Everyday

1. Dominant means the strongest, most important or most powerful in a group. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/#m1)
2. Dominant can mean the most noticeable, the thing you see most, like a dominant colour. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/#m2)
3. (science) A dominant gene is one whose feature shows up even if you got it from only one parent. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/#m3)
4. (music) The dominant is the fifth note of a scale. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/#m4)

### In the lessons

In everyday life and sport it means stronger than the rest: «a dominant team». In science (genetics), brown eyes are often given as an example of a dominant feature (simplified), while blue are recessive. With animals, the dominant one leads the pack. Most people have a dominant hand, the one they write with. Phrases: «dominant hand», «dominant species», «dominant player».

### Examples

- Lions are the dominant animals on the savannah. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/#x1)
- My dominant hand is my left hand. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/#x2)
- Red is the dominant colour in the painting. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/#x3)
- The dominant wolf eats first. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/#x4)
- Our team was dominant in the second half. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/#x5)
- The gene for brown eyes is usually dominant. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/#x6)
- English is the dominant language on the internet. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/#x7)

### Note

Adjective; noun: dominance; verb: dominate. Spelled with -ant (not -ent). Opposite in genetics: recessive. Myth: eye colour is controlled by several genes, so the simple «brown beats blue» rule is only an approximation.

## On Mova

- [Trees and pragmatics of «dominant» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/dominant/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«dominant» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/school/w/dominant.html) on Mova free.