primary
Forms
- Comparative
- more primary
- Superlative
- most primary
- Plural
- primaries
Definitions
1.First or earliest in a group or series.
- Children attend primary school, and teenagers attend secondary school.
2.Main; principal; chief; placed ahead of others.
3.Earliest formed; fundamental.
- Preferred stock has primary claim on dividends, ahead of common stock.
4.Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some quality or property in the first degree; having undergone the first stage of substitution or replacement.
1.The first year of grade school.
2.A base or fundamental component; something that is irreducible.
3.The most massive component of a gravitationally bound system, such as a planet in relation to its satellites.
4.A primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party, or the first round of a two-round election.
- In recent primaries, for example, nearly 4% of absentees were rejected in Philadelphia; 8% in Kentucky; and 20% in parts of New York City.
Frequency
Overall
Common· #1598
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Common
- Academic
- Common
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
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.