the excess of votes received by the leading candidate, in an election in which there are three or more candidates, over those received by the next candidate (distinguished from majority ).
If you have an election and three people are running whoever gets over fifty percent of the vote is the majority and the other two candidates would be considered pluralists. When you split an amount between three and one has the majority the other two would be considered pluralist.
The above is not entirely correct. A Majority is over half the votes, while a Plurality is the greatest number of votes but less than half.
A plurality happens when less than half vote for a candidate that wins because the vote is split among more than two candidates. For example, candidate A gets 40% of the vote, candidate B gets 35%, and candidate C gets 25%, Candidate A wins by a plurality.