modal

ˈmō-dᵊl

adjective

  1. relating to or expressing possibility, necessity, or permission; used with modal verbs

    B1

    adjective

    • "The modal verb 'can' expresses ability."A2
    • "She used a modal form to suggest a possibility."B1
    • "In advanced grammar, modal verbs can be used to express obligation."B2

noun

  1. a modal verb, a type of auxiliary verb that expresses modality (possibility, necessity, etc.)

    B1

    countable

    • "'Can', 'must', and 'should' are common modals."A2
    • "English has about a dozen modals used in everyday speech."B1
    • "The teacher asked students to identify the modals in the paragraph."B2

  2. the most frequently occurring value in a data set (statistical term)

    C1

    countable

    • "The modal of the distribution is 5."C1
    • "In this survey, 42% is the modal response."C1

Collocations

modal verbmodal particlemodal value

Word family

modalitymodalize