primary

English Online Dictionary. What means primary‎? What does primary mean?

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin prīmārius (“of the first (rank); chief, principal; excellent”), from prīmus (first; whence the English adjective prime) + -ārius (whence the English suffix -ary); compare the French primaire, primer, and premier. Doublet of premier.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹaɪməɹi/
• (US) enPR: prīʹmĕr-ē, IPA^(key): /ˈpɹaɪˌmɛɹi/ or enPR: prīʹmə-rē, IPA^(key): /ˈpɹaɪməɹi/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈpɹaɪm(ə)ɹiː/
• Rhymes: -aɪməɹi, -aɪmɛɹi

Adjective

primary (comparative more primary, superlative most primary)

1. First or earliest in a group or series.
   • , Book II, Chapter VIII

     These I call original, or primary, qualities of body.

2. Main; principal; chief; placed ahead of others.

3. (geology) Earliest formed; fundamental.
4. (chemistry) Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some quality or property in the first degree; having undergone the first stage of substitution or replacement.
5. (medicine) Relating to the place where a disorder or disease started to occur.
6. (medicine) Relating to day-to-day care provided by health professionals such as nurses, general practitioners, dentists etc.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• first
• primus inter pares

Noun

primary (plural primaries)

1. (political science) A primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party, or the first round of a two-round election.
2. The first year of grade school.
3. A base or fundamental component; something that is irreducible.
4. The most massive component of a gravitationally bound system, such as a planet in relation to its satellites.
5. A primary school.
6. (ornithology) Any flight feather attached to the manus (hand) of a bird.
7. A primary colour.
8. (military) The first stage of a thermonuclear weapon, which sets off a fission explosion to help trigger a fusion reaction in the weapon's secondary stage.
9. (aviation) A radar return from an aircraft (or other object) produced solely by the reflection of the radar beam from the aircraft's skin, without additional information from the aircraft's transponder.
10. (medicine) The primary site of a disease; the original location or source of the disease.

11. (electronics) A directly driven inductive coil, as in a transformer or induction motor that is magnetically coupled to a secondary.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

primary (third-person singular simple present primaries, present participle primarying, simple past and past participle primaried)

1. (US, politics, transitive, intransitive) To challenge (an incumbent sitting politician) for their political party's nomination to run for re-election, through running a challenger campaign in a primary election, especially one that is more ideologically extreme.
2. (US, intransitive, transitive) To take part in a primary election.

References

• primary on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Further reading

• “primary”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “primary”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.