dominant

Forms

1.Of an allele, that a heterozygote for the allele has the same phenotype as the homozygote.
2.The fifth major tone of a musical scale (five major steps above the note in question); thus G is the dominant of C, A of D, and so on.
3.The triad built on the dominant tone.
4.A species or organism that is dominant.
- Landowners cannot afford to cut submerchantable trees, yet many hesitate to cut merchantable dominants and codominants at the risk of downgrading the residual stand.

1.Ruling; governing; prevailing
- The dominant party controlled the government.
- The member of a dominant race is, in his dealings with the subject race, seldom indeed fraudulent, […] but imperious, insolent, and cruel.
2.Predominant, common, prevalent, of greatest importance.
- The dominant plants of the Carboniferous were lycopods and early conifers.
- All other elements are mere "impurities" when their abundances are compared with those of these two dominant elements.
3.Of a body part, preferred and used with greater dexterity than the other, as the right hand of a right-handed person or the left hand of a left-handed one.
4.Designating the follicle which will survive atresia and permit ovulation.

Uncommon· #3688

Borrowed from Middle French dominant.