51 percent

English

Alternative forms

• 51%

Noun

51 percent

1. A narrow or bare majority.
   • 1975, Milton Friedman, There's no such thing as a free lunch‎^[1]:

     But in a political system, everything tends to be a yes-or-no decision; if 51 percent vote yes, it's yes.

   • 1995, Lani Guinier, The tyranny of the majority‎^[2]:

     Majority rule, loosely put, is the proposition that 51 percent of the people should be able to get whatever they want.

   • 1999, K. C. Cole, The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty‎^[3], page 100:

     It was he who argued that the tyranny imposed by 51 percent of the people was every bit as threatening to democracy as the royal tyranny the colonists had fought to leave behind.