Definition of modifier in English:

noun

• 1A person or thing that makes partial or minor changes to something.

  ‘mood modifiers like Valium and Lithium’

  More example sentences

  • ‘‘Chocolate is a potent mood modifier,’ says the author.’
  • ‘OK, so there's no way a sea breeze is a classic cocktail, but since it conforms to the classic rule - a single spirit base and two modifiers - we'll allow it.’
  • ‘Some eastern Albertan farmers hold weather modifiers responsible for further disrupting the natural water cycles and dehydrating their already parched land.’
  • ‘This is a serious look at America's extreme body modifiers - think tongue splitting, elective amputation and the like.’
  • ‘We've hired therapists and behavioral modifiers, parent effectiveness training.’
  • ‘Corporate food modifiers go around in lab coats and play with petri-dishes and DNA.’
  • ‘When a modified work were downloaded or streamed, both the creator of the original work and the modifier would get a share of the resultant revenue.’

  1. 1.1Grammar A word, especially an adjective or noun used attributively, that restricts or adds to the sense of a head noun (e.g. good and family in a good family house).
     More example sentences

     • ‘This is possible because moving can function as an attributive modifier of the head noun pianos.’
     • ‘Proper nouns can: when we talk about London fog, we are using London (a proper noun) as an attributive modifier of the noun fog.’
     • ‘Although the modifier in a noun phrase will often be an adjective, it doesn't have to be.’
     • ‘They have to deal with the here and now and be composed of strong nouns and verbs; rarely are there modifiers, such as adjectives or adverbs.’
     • ‘In many of these languages, nouns are composed of modifiers known as prefixes, infixes, and suffixes.’
     • ‘Far from being ungrammatical, split infinitives are always an option for modifiers of infinitival clauses, and sometimes the only option.’
  2. 1.2Genetics A gene which modifies the phenotypic expression of a gene at another locus.
     More example sentences

     • ‘This was explained by the action of rare alleles of autosomal modifiers that can influence or override the sex chromosome genes.’
     • ‘These results demonstrate the existence of a class of modifiers of gene expression whose effects are associated with transient changes in DNA methylation of specific loci.’
     • ‘The change in allele frequency at the modifier locus during diploid selection is given by Recombination.’
     • ‘Consequentially, once the allele attains a significant frequency, the evolution of modifiers that force the gene to be expressed only in males is expected.’
     • ‘Whenever possible, the interactions were confirmed with additional alleles of each putative modifier gene.’
     • ‘This shows that the modifier gene did not affect Compact trait expression in the female.’