the.com/minus
the sign that admits something's missing and dares you to keep going anyway
means A word or symbol meaning 'less' — subtracting an amount, or lacking something altogether.
from From Latin minus, meaning 'less,' the neuter comparative of minor ('smaller'). It came into English through mathematical and legal Latin phrases, where 'minus' marked a deduction — and the minus sign itself (−) emerged in the 15th–16th centuries among German and Italian mathematicians as scribal shorthand, eventually standardized in print.
- origin
- from latin minus, meaning less
- symbol history
- the dash predates plus sign by decades
- grading quirk
- a minus can cost you GPA, not just pride
- temperature trick
- only negative number everyone says aloud daily