Meaning of dominant in English:

dominant

Pronunciation /ˈdɒmɪnənt/

See synonyms for dominant

Translate dominant into Spanish

adjective

1Having power and influence over others.
‘they are now in an even more dominant position in the market’
- ‘He argues that historically the reaction of lesser states has been determined more by the potential power of the dominant state than by its actual behaviour or avowed intentions.’
- ‘Geopolitics, history and common sense all indicate that a dominant power chooses its own policies without being influenced by the special wishes of others - however friendly.’
- ‘His powerful and sometimes dominant influence on Austrian politics is a result of the refusal of the other official parties to seriously take him on.’
- ‘The moral of the story so far is this: don't become the clearly dominant power unless you are able to preserve your position through cunning diplomacy, or you are large enough to make the dash for victory.’
- ‘Any firm with the market power attendant upon a dominant position has the potential to do this.’
- ‘However, the second half of the month was wet and windy as Atlantic depressions became the dominant influence, some of which owed their origins to former hurricanes.’
- ‘It has moved from being a dominant power which most often works through a sort of informal consensus to one that increasingly seeks to act through dictation.’
- ‘The romantics are moralistic, rebellious against the perceived dominant power, and combative against any who appear to stray from the true path.’
- ‘They will not be the dominant power for long anyway.’
- ‘However, she disobeys her orders and resists the dominant powers with little effort.’
- ‘To make progress in their struggle for equality, they needed to wrest power from their own dominant strata.’
- ‘It has, since the 1960s, been the dominant influence on education policy on both sides of the Atlantic.’
- ‘How has all this misleading language become so dominant across the political spectrum?’
- ‘Only the largest and most dominant males have the opportunity to breed.’
- ‘Larger individuals generally are socially dominant, and so compete better for food resources.’
- ‘The peace settlement left it in a potentially dominant position in Europe, wounded but not seriously hurt.’
- ‘Economically, however, the paper remains dominant in its market.’
- ‘The emergence of improvement as a dominant ideology derived from three of its characteristics.’
- ‘Moreover, the development of a dominant ideology deserves a mention in this context.’
- ‘By the 1930s, it had become the dominant paradigm in American experimental psychology.’
presiding, ruling, governing, controlling, commanding, ascendant, supreme, authoritative, most influential, most powerful, superior
assertive, self-assured, self-possessed, authoritative, forceful, domineering, commanding, controlling, bullish
View synonyms
1. 1.1(of a high place) overlooking others.
  ‘Councillors heard the property was in a dominant position overlooking the Upper Green, and due to design details did not contribute favourably to the appearance of the conservation area.’
  ‘‘We own the dominant terrain in the area’.’
  ‘When covering a region from dominant terrain, evacuate the force by establishing a series of perimeter posts.’
  ‘The mountains represent the dominant terrain of the country and the rising sun represents a ‘new dawn’ for the nation.’
  ‘Instead of constantly maneuvering to maintain contact, the platoon should seize the dominant terrain in the area.’
2. 1.2Genetics Relating to or denoting heritable characteristics which are controlled by genes that are expressed in offspring even when inherited from only one parent.
  Often contrasted with recessive
  ‘it is the dominant gene causing polydactyly’
  ‘the mutant allele is dominant to the wild type’
  ‘One dominant suppressor was identified among the 112 suppressors characterized.’
  ‘For simplicity, we assume that alleles are partially dominant and expressed in both sexes.’
  ‘In contrast, a fully dominant modifier can never invade.’
  ‘Consider first a dominant allele that is beneficial to females but detrimental to males.’
  ‘X-ray mutagenesis led to the identification of dominant mutations altering the number of bristles.’
3. 1.3Ecology Denoting the predominant species in a plant (or animal) community.
  ‘red spruce is a dominant species in many types of forest’
  ‘Fluctuations in the productivity of dominant plant species should also have a significant impact on complex food webs in forest ecosystems.’
  ‘In an environment with moving sand, tolerance to partial burial seems to be a requisite for the dominant plant species.’
  ‘Perennial woody plants are the dominant species in many ecosystems of the world and have significant ecological and economic importance.’
  ‘Sandy areas at the study site can be classified into two habitat types based on mobility of the sand and on the dominant perennial plant species.’
  ‘In the hotter climates of southwest Asia and Africa, a ‘mutant’ with only one hump, the Dromedary, became the dominant species.’
4. 1.4(in decision theory) denoting a choice that is at least as good as the alternatives in all circumstances, and better in some.
  ‘holding back is here a dominant strategy’
  ‘Although the dominant strategy is to not donate, approximately 50% of the students donated.’
  ‘They too concluded that non-invasive ventilation was a dominant strategy for severe exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.’
  ‘In game theoretic terms, this suggests that there is a dominant strategy that mechanistically pushes all parties to compete.’
  ‘At times the seeking or avoiding of such even exchanges may even be the dominant strategy in a game.’

noun

1Genetics
A dominant trait or gene.
‘this disorder is inherited as a dominant’
- ‘Instead selection causes the same increase in allele frequency in both dominants and recessives, at least early on when the fates of nearly all alleles are determined.’
- ‘This suggested that the wirehair gene is a simple dominant because there was little chance the unrelated female was carrying a recessive wirehair gene.’
- ‘Most are inherited as autosomal dominants, and death can be prevented by implantable cardioverter defibrillators.’
- ‘The gene governing taillessness is an incomplete dominant.’
1. 1.1Ecology A dominant species in a plant (or animal) community.
  ‘oak is a long-established dominant’
  ‘In all years, the community dominants were species resilient to the stress of drawdowns, or good colonizers.’
  ‘The presumed mechanism is the increase in biomass with fertility, and the resulting rise in competition intensity, which leads to the replacement of smaller and more-slow growing plant species by tall canopy-forming dominants.’
  ‘In the concessions model of reproductive transactions, dominants are assumed to have complete control over reproduction and group membership.’
  ‘However, shorter subordinate species were able to capture equal or even greater amounts of light per unit mass than dominants in spite of the fact that they were heavily shaded.’
  ‘Forest trees are good experimental objects because they are dominants, and because suitable methods are available to determine growth increments.’
2Music
The fifth note of the diatonic scale of any key, or the key based on this, considered in relation to the key of the tonic.
‘At the end of this deeply thought-provoking work, then, one is left wondering whether the tonic is E and the dominant B, or the tonic B with dominants D, F and G#.’
- ‘So, as he informs us, his tonal process is principally governed by what he describes as tonics and dominants.’
- ‘The sonata form, and its gripping epic of migration from the tonic to the dominant and then back again, is an archetype of this.’
- ‘In measures 68 and 69, an A-major chord, the dominant of the key, is sounded, signaling the end of the piece.’
- ‘Pitches in brackets are not dominant in the melodic cell.’