minus

1. 1

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

   • Seven minus two is five.
2. 2

   Without; deprived of.informal

   • I walked out minus my coat.

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.

syn. defect · deficiency · drawback · flaw · shortcoming

ant. plus · plus sign · antonym(s) of · advantage · bonus · boon · gain

1. 1

   Being a negative quantity; pertaining to a deficit or reduction.not-comparable

   • a minus number
2. 2

   That is below zero by (a specified amount) on a scale.not-comparable

   • minus seven degrees
3. 3

   Worse off than before; out of pocket.colloquialnot-comparableobsolete

   • 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).not-comparablepostpositional

   • He got a grade of B minus for his essay.

syn. negative

1. 1

   To subtract.colloquialtransitive

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