quorum
n. countablen. the smallest number of people who must be at a meeting before any official decisions can be made. If there are not enough people, the meeting cannot start.
n. the minimum number of members of an assembly or society that must be present at any of its meetings to make the proceedings of that meeting valid. In computing, it refers to the minimum number of nodes in a cluster that must be online for the system to remain operational.
The committee could not vote because they did not have a quorum.
The board meeting was adjourned after only ten minutes because they failed to reach a quorum for the budget vote.
In distributed systems, achieving a quorum ensures that the cluster can maintain data consistency and prevent a split-brain scenario where two parts of the network operate independently.
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”).
Often used with the verbs 'reach', 'achieve', or 'form'.