Link Centre Dictionary

modal

mo·dal

UK/ˈməʊdəl/ US/ˈmoʊdəl/ uncommon

adjective

1.

relating to or constituting the most frequent value in a distribution

  • “the modal age at which American novelists reach their peak is 30”
Synonyms
Similar
2.

of or relating to a musical mode; especially written in an ecclesiastical mode

3.

relating to or expressing the mood of a verb

  • “modal auxiliary”

Origin

From Middle French modal, from Medieval Latin modālis (“pertaining to a mode”), from Latin modus (“mode”). Compare to French, Spanish, and Portuguese modal and Italian modale. By surface analysis, mod(e) + -al.

Phrases

  • double modal
  • modal stacking
  • stacked modal

Related words

Word family

Pertaining to

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.