Modal

Quick meaning: Modal is an adjective meaning Of, or relating to a mode or modus.

Meaning

Of, or relating to a mode or modus.

More Meanings

1. (grammar) Of, relating to, or describing the mood of a clause.
2. (logic) Of, or relating to the modality between propositions.
3. (statistics) Relating to the statistical mode.
4. (computing) Having separate modes in which user input has different effects.
5. (metaphysics) Relating to the form of a thing rather to any of its attributes.
6. (music) Of, relating to, or composed in the musical modi by which an octave is divided, associated with emotional moods in Ancient — and in medieval ecclesiastical — music.
7. (graphical user interface) Requiring immediate user interaction and thus presented so that it cannot be closed or interacted behind until a decision is made.

Example Sentences

a modal dialog; a modal window

Modal screen elements are subtrees which, when activated, disable all elements external to them. Examples of modals are yes-no message boxes and the application itself.

Dialogs can be modal, in which case the user is required to provide necessary information before work in the main window can continue, or modeless. Modeless dialogs do not prevent the user from interacting with any of the other windows in the application.

Using the same type of distributional criterion, we could argue that only a Verb (in its base form) can occur in the position marked — in (23) below to complete the sentence: (23) They/it can — [...] Conversely, the only type of word which could be used to begin a three-word sentence such as (25) below: (25) — I be frank? is a Modal: cf. [...]

Word Forms

• modals

Synonyms for modal

Depending on context, synonyms include forming, conditioning, average.

Antonyms for modal

Common opposites include modeless.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include normal, average, multimodal, mode, dominant, intermodal.

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