major premise

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The premise containing the major term in a syllogism.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Logic) That premise of a syllogism that contains the major term (which is the predicate of the conclusion). Contrasted to minor premise.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun logic In a categorical syllogism, the premise whose terms are the syllogism's major term and middle term.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the premise of a syllogism that contains the major term (which is the predicate of the conclusion)