supermajor

English

Etymology

From super- +‎ major.

Pronunciation

  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪdʒə(ɹ)

Adjective

supermajor (not comparable)

  1. Very major; of great significance or importance.
  2. (music) An interval larger in size than a major interval but smaller than the next largest minor interval.

Noun

supermajor (plural supermajors)

  1. Any of the world's largest privately owned oil and gas companies.
    • 2008 June 7, Conrad De Aenlle, “Big Oil Is Owed Some Love”, in The New York Times‎[1], archived from the original on 26 November 2022:
      Mr. Freeman prefers smaller yet still diversified companies with stronger growth profiles than the supermajors, like Apache, which has interests in natural gas as well as oil, and Occidental Petroleum, which produces oil, gas and chemicals. […] “The supermajors are still a great place to be because they’re starting to bring large projects on line that have been years in the making,” she said.
    • 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist‎[2], volume 408, number 8847, archived from the original on 2 August 2020:
      Not surprisingly, the oil “supermajors” and the IEA disagree. […] Currently, Exxon Mobil vies with Apple as the world’s biggest listed company. Yet Exxon and the other oil supermajors are more vulnerable than they look (see article).
    • 2014, John R. Heilbrunn, Oil, Democracy, and Development in Africa, page 90:
      International oil companies operating in Africa range from the supermajors to majors, the still smaller independents, and finally the lean frontier specialists that operate in emerging producers.
  2. A very large soldier ant, bigger than a major.
    Synonym: supersoldier
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.