Quorum
//ˈkwɔː.ɹəm// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A select body of (usually eminent) justices of the peace, every member of which had to be present to constitute a deciding body; a member of this body. Later more generally: all justices collectively. historical
- 2 a gathering of the minimal number of members of an organization to conduct business wordnet
- 3 The minimum number of members required for a group to officially conduct business and to cast votes, often but not necessarily a majority or supermajority.
"We can discuss the issue tonight but cannot vote until we have a quorum."
- 4 Distinguished or essential members of any body; a select company. archaic
- 5 The minimum number of votes that a distributed transaction has to obtain in order to be allowed to perform an operation in a distributed system.
Example
More examples"At a directors' meeting, unless a quorum is participating, no proposal is to be voted on, except a proposal to call another meeting."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English quorum (c. 1426), from Anglo-Norman quorum, clipped from the Anglo-Latin wording of commissions in which certain persons were specially designated as members of a body by the words quorum vos unum esse volumus ad etc. (“of whom we want you to be one assigned to etc.”). Latin quōrum is the masculine genitive plural of the relative pronoun quī (“who”).
Related phrases
More for "quorum"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.