The major term is the predicate term of the conclusion of a categorical syllogism. It appears in the major premise along with the middle term and not the minor term. It is an end term (meaning not the middle term).
Example:
- Major premise: All men are mortal.
- Minor premise: Socrates is a man.
- Conclusion: Therefore Socrates is mortal.
The major term is bolded above.
This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.
Famous quotes containing the words major and/or term:
“As a novelist, I cannot occupy myself with “characters,” or at any rate central ones, who lack panache, in one or another sense, who would be incapable of a major action or a major passion, or who have not a touch of the ambiguity, the ultimate unaccountability, the enlarging mistiness of persons “in history.” History, as more austerely I now know it, is not romantic. But I am.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“We term sleep a death ... by which we may be literally said to die daily; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.”
—Thomas Browne (1605–1682)