minor (graph theory)

In linear algebra, there is a different unrelated meaning of the word "minor". See minor (linear algebra). In graph theory, a graph H is called a minor of the graph G if H is isomorphic to a graph that can be obtained by zero or more edge contractions on a subgraph of G. Edge contraction is the process of removing an edge and combining its two endpoints into a single node (since the edge is first removed, the resulting node has a loop if and only if either one of the original ones have). Alternatively, H is a minor of G if it can be obtained from G by contracting edges, removing edges, and removing isolated nodes.
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