primary
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.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈpɹaɪməɹi/
- (US) enPR: prīʹmĕr-ē, IPA(key): /ˈpɹaɪˌmɛɹi/ or enPR: prīʹmə-rē, IPA(key): /ˈpɹaɪməɹi/
- (General New Zealand) IPA(key): /ˈpɹɒeməɹi/, /ˈpɹɒemɹi/
Audio (US) (file)
Adjective
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primary (comparative more primary, superlative most primary)
- The first in a group or series.
- Children attend primary school, and teenagers attend secondary school.
- Bishop Pearson
- the church of Christ, in its primary institution
- John Locke
- These I call original, or primary, qualities of body.
- Main; principal; placed ahead of others.
- Preferred stock has primary claim on dividends, ahead of common stock.
- (geology) Earliest formed; fundamental.
- (chemistry) Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some quality or property in the first degree; having undergone the first stage of substitution or replacement.
- (medicine) Relating to the place where a disorder or disease started to occur.
- (medicine) Relating to day-to-day care provided by health professionals such as nurses, general practitioners, dentists etc.
Derived terms
Translations
first in a group or series
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that which is placed ahead of others
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
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See also
Noun
primary (plural primaries)
- A primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party.
- The first year of grade school.
- A base or fundamental component; something that is irreducible.
- The most massive component of a gravitationally bound system, such as a planet in relation to its satellites.
- A primary school.
- 2001, David Woods, Martyn Cribb, Effective LEAs and school improvement
- Excellence in Cities offers a further development of this approach, whereby secondary schools operate with small clusters of primaries as mini-EAZs.
- 2001, David Woods, Martyn Cribb, Effective LEAs and school improvement
- (ornithology) Any flight feather attached to the manus (hand) of a bird.
- A primary colour.
- 2003, Julie A Jacko, Andrew Sears, The human-computer interaction handbook
- By adding and subtracting the three primaries, cyan, yellow, and magenta are produced. These are called subtractive primaries.
- 2003, Julie A Jacko, Andrew Sears, The human-computer interaction handbook
- (medicine) Primary site of disease; original location or source of the disease.
- unknown primary
- most common primaries
- (electronics) A directly driven inductive coil, as in a transformer or induction motor that is magnetically coupled to a secondary
Translations
preliminary election
first year of grade school
base or fundamental component
ornithology: flight feather
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Verb
primary (third-person singular simple present primaries, present participle primarying, simple past and past participle primaried)
- (US, transitive) To knock out an incumbent in the primary election, typically used referring to a non-incumbent challenger.
- (US, intransitive) To take part in a primary election.
- (US, politics) To challenge an incumbent sitting politician for their political party's endorsement to run for re-election, through running a challenger campaign in a primary election
Further reading
- primary in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- primary in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
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