I am writing a list of descriptions of how much or how little importance is attached to an issue under discussion or to a product feature under consideration. I would like to have three or four entries. We are describing either the magnitude of the impact upon a customer or the value to be perceived by the customer.
The words major and minor seem like a perfect fit for the middle values. But what words would be used for a higher level of importance and for a lower level?
My only candidate for a lesser value is slight. I considered trivial, but it has a dismissive connotation, a note of irrelevance, which is not appropriate to my list.
For a higher level of importance, my candidates are prime, key, and chief. Prime seems to fit, given the common phrase of prime importance. But I'm not sure about prime. We will have multiple items with the label prime, and I am not sure if prime should only be used with a singleton.
Are prime, major, minor, and slight the best set of items for a choice list for gauging importance or for describing magnitude of impact or value?
