# Dominant group/Lexical definition

A lexical definition is usually a dictionary definition and "is either true or false."
Dominant group, as a two-word term, does not occur in a common language English dictionary.
But, as a term, it does occur in at least one specialty dictionary and in several others as a part of definitions for specialty terms.
When it does occur in a context, dominant group indicates original research as use of the term comes from the application of specific tests within the concept embodied by the term.

## Dominant group

Examples from primary sources are to be used to prove or disprove each hypothesis. These can be collected per subject or in general.
* Accident hypothesis: dominant group is an accident of whatever processes are operating.
* Artifact hypothesis: dominant group may be an artifact of human endeavor or may have preceded humanity.
* Association hypothesis: dominant group is associated in some way with the original research.
* Bad group hypothesis: dominant group is the group that engages in discrimination, abuse, punishment, and additional criminal activity against other groups. It often has an unfair advantage and uses it to express monopolistic practices.
* Control group hypothesis: there is a control group that can be used to study dominant group.
* Entity hypothesis: dominant group is an entity within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
* Evolution hypothesis: dominant group is a product of evolutionary processes, such groups are the evolutionary process, produce evolutionary processes, or are independent of evolutionary processes.
* Identifier hypothesis: dominant group is an identifier used by primary source authors of original research to identify an observation in the process of analysis.
* Importance hypothesis: dominant group signifies original research results that usually need to be explained by theory and interpretation of experiments.
* Indicator hypothesis: dominant group may be an indicator of something as yet not understood by the primary author of original research.
* Influence hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article containing original research to indicate influence or an influential phenomenon.
* Interest hypothesis: dominant group is a theoretical entity used by scholarly authors of primary sources for phenomena of interest.
* Metadefinition hypothesis: all uses of dominant group by all primary source authors of original research are included in the metadefinition for dominant group.
* Null hypothesis: there is no significant or special meaning of dominant group in any sentence or figure caption in any refereed journal article.
* Object hypothesis: dominant group is an object within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
* Obvious hypothesis: the only meaning of dominant group is the one found in Mosby's Medical Dictionary.
* Original research hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article by the author to indicate that the article contains original research.
* Primordial hypothesis: dominant group is a primordial concept inherent to humans such that every language or other form of communication no matter how old or whether extinct, on the verge of extinction, or not, has at least a synonym for dominant group.
* Purpose hypothesis: dominant group is written into articles by authors for a purpose.
* Regional hypothesis: dominant group, when it occurs, is only a manifestation of the limitations within a region. Variation of those limitations may result in the loss of a dominant group with the eventual appearance of a new one or none at all.
* Source hypothesis: dominant group is a source within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
* Term hypothesis: dominant group is a significant term that may require a 'rigorous definition' or application and verification of an empirical definition.

## Lexicology

Def. "[t]he part of linguistics that studies words, their nature and meaning, words' elements, relations between words including semantic relations, words groups and the whole lexicon" is called lexicology.
Def. "[t]he meaning of a word in actual usage by speakers of a certain language" is called a lexical definition.
Def. "[a] descriptive definition specifying one of the commonly used meanings of the defined term" is called a dictionary definition.

## Dictionaries

Def. "a social group that controls the value system and rewards in a particular society." is called a dominant group, occurs in Mosby's Medical Dictionary.
Dominant group does not occur in "A Dictionary of the English Language: in which The Words are deduced from their Originals, Explained in their Different Meanings, and Authorised by the Names of the Writers in whole Works they are found" by Samuel Johnson from 1797 digitized by Google.
Dominant group does occur in "The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: Supplement" on page 550, "Dominant group. See subdominant ✭group. There is described Kirby's entomology classification from 1826.
A Google books search using "Dictionary "dominant group"" yields "About 4,500 results". In nearly all of these dominant group is within a definition of another term or its description.

## Precising definition

"A precising definition is a definition that extends the lexical definition of a term for a specific purpose by including additional criteria that narrow down the set of things meeting the definition." The precising definition is usually aimed at the definiens. For Mosby's Medical Dictionary definition of dominant group this is "a social group that controls the value system and rewards in a particular society."
An attempt at a precising definition might be "a social group that in all cases are stony meteors". Independent of verb plurality "are" versus "is", the latter "definition" regarding "stony meteors" clearly contradicts the idea of a "social group". This suggests that the 'meteors' definition (if it can be called that) is a stipulative definition: "a type of definition in which a ... currently-existing term is given a specific meaning for the purposes of ... discussion in a given context." Similar to stipulative definitions are "[t]heoretical definitions, used extensively in science". A theoretical definition "gives the meaning of a word in terms of the theories of a specific discipline."
The use of dominant group in the 'meteors' article does not contradict the 'majority' usage of social psychology, but is obviously at odds with "a social group", or at least the "social" portion. Further, the term's use in the 'meteors' article does seem to contradict the earliest uses of dominant group in sociology (aristocratic classes, 1923) but not necessarily the earliest in psychology (1930).

## Ecology

Def. “[u]nder the many conditions of life which this world affords, any group which is numerous in individuals and species and is widely distributed, may properly be called dominant" [a dominant group]. [Letter 110. To W.H. Harvey, August, 1860]

## Entomology

Def. groups of insects whose geographical distribution "extends to the tropics, [but] fall short of the polar circles" are called dominant groups.

## History

For Mosby's Medical Dictionary definition there is the use of "a social group". As a specific discipline this suggests either sociology or psychology. From social psychology is "[o]n our use of the term, a dominant group need not be a numerical majority (although it often will be)." This article is published in the "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology" dated August 2005.
Eight editions of Mosby's Medical Dictionary have occurred, but only the more recent seven (1987 - 2nd to 2009 - 8th) are accessible by either Google scholar or a full web search using Google. Of these, dominant group is defined in and additionally occurs within another term's definition in the 8th edition only.
This suggests but does not confirm that the definition in Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition (2009), is a precising definition of the term as used in 2005, where "a social group that controls the value system and rewards in a particular society." "need not be a numerical majority (although it often will be)."
"[A] precising definition does not [contradict the lexical definition]." That is the case above.
Although the exact wording of some earlier definition of dominant group from either sociology or psychology has not been found, it seems likely from chronology that it includes "need not be a numerical majority (although it often will be)." in some meaningful or implicit way.

## Political sciences

For the 1700s, a couple of dominant group relative synonyms in bold have appeared in print:
"Even the actual promoters of the most important interests of mankind have seldom anticipated, in idea, the progressive consequences of their own plans."
"For the impression of the commercial arts is often conspicuous in the upper departments of life, before it reaches those of inferior condition; but the circle gradually widens." Neither word dominant nor group appears in the text of Dunbar's book from 1780, digitized by Google.
An early occurrence in the 1800s in bold of a dominant group relative synonym is from 1820:
"There was a violent war party, who wished all the resources of the State to be placed at the disposal of the national government; there was a peace party, composed of members of both parties, determined to put every obstacle in the way of the administration; while the Federalists generally regarded the declaration of war as an act of tyranny, and the measures of the dominant party as an infringement of State rights."
The earliest use of dominant group is in the following quote:
“The fact that a group is egoistic and dominant proves that it is well formed and that it approaches the make-up of a man.”
So far in the ongoing timeline and radiance exploration, the second earliest sociological use of dominant group occurs in the article "Art in a Democracy" from 1923: "It is but natural that when aristocratic ideals should impose themselves upon any polity the art of that polity should reflect the taste, the culture, the ways of life, and the very being of the dominant classes." and “At any rate, here is confirmation of the thesis that art voices the will of the dominant group in society.”
For the earliest discovered psychology article (1930), "a member of [the dominant group] will excel submissive persons in academic endeavors."
Neither of these uses of the term precisely excludes "need not be a numerical majority (although it often will be).", but appear to be additional precising definitions or may be stipulative or theoretical definitions of some other definition.
In searching titles at url=http://www.jstor.org, the term "majority" has its earliest occurrence in 1672, "psychology" in 1800, "sociology" in 1845, and dominant group in 1877. For combinations, dominant group + majority, the earliest occurrence is in 1877, dominant group + psychology is 1884, dominant group + sociology is 1897, dominant group + majority + psychology is 1912, and dominant group + majority + sociology is 1912. The last two combinations occur in the same article: "Race Psychology: Standpoint and Questionnaire, With Particular Reference to the Immigrant and the Negro" in the American Journal of Sociology. Dominant group appears on page 756 and majority appears on 741. "Majority" appears to refer to the majority of Poles in Pozen, Poland, while dominant group appears to refer to the majority in the United States relative to immigrants and "the Negro" (minorities). This usage tends to confirm but does not indicate that dominant group, majority, psychology, and sociology are associated in 1912.
If confirmed from additional sources, the association of these four terms suggests that the more recent usage for non-majority groups may be a precising on this undiscovered earlier definition to possible dominant minority groups. The earlier usage, then, involves a majority.

## Psychology

"[A] group is dominant if it possesses a disproportionate share of societal resources, privileges, and power."
Def. a group that "possesses a disproportionate share of societal resources, privileges, and power" is called a dominant group.

## Sociology

"For purposes of this analysis, I define a dominant ethnic group as the ethnic group in a society that exercises power to create and maintain a pattern of economic, political, and institutional advantage, which in turn results in the unequal (disproportionately beneficial to the dominant group) distribution of resources."
Def. "the ethnic group in a society that exercises power to create and maintain a pattern of economic, political, and institutional advantage, which in turn results in the unequal (disproportionately beneficial to the dominant group) distribution of resources" is called a dominant ethnic group.
From the Dictionary of Medical Sociology, "Conflict theory claims that a true consensus about social norms and values does not exist; rather, a society's norms and values are those of the dominant group and are imposed by them on the less privileged in order to maintain their advantage." Bold added.
At least two scientific terms benefit from the use of dominant group in the Dictionary Of The Social Sciences,
* "culture, dominant the culture of the dominant group in a society." and
* "group, minority 1. group having a radial or cultural distinctiveness leading to a self-definition or definition by others of alienage with resulting lower esteem and discrimination by dominant group."

## Term uses

"The dominant group in all cases are stony meteors." The article is entitled, "On the composition of meteors". The phrase "in all cases" refers to various meteor showers experienced here on Earth.
The 'meteors' article, published in 1958, states "stony meteors, i.e. 68 p.c." "among all the 217 meteors". The abbreviation "p.c." is for "per cent" or "per centage". Here there is commonality between some early sociological or psychological definition of dominant group as a majority and as a majority of meteors.

## Hypotheses

* As a two-word term of limited popularity, dominant group is unlikely to occur is a language dictionary.