primary

First or earliest in a group or series.

Adjective

  1. First or earliest in a group or series.
    • Children attend primary school, and teenagers attend secondary school.
    • the church of Christ, in its primary institution - 1659, John Pearson, Exposition of the Creed:
    • , Book II, Chapter VIII These I call original, or primary, qualities of body.
  2. Main; principal; chief; placed ahead of others.
    • Preferred stock has primary claim on dividends, ahead of common stock.
  3. Earliest formed; fundamental.
  4. Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some quality or property in the first degree; having undergone the first stage of substitution or replacement.
  5. Relating to the place where a disorder or disease started to occur.
  6. Relating to day-to-day care provided by health professionals such as nurses, general practitioners, dentists etc.

Origin

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.

Forms

more primary most primary

Related

first primus inter pares

Derived

circumprimary coprimary megaprimary nonprimary postprimary preprimary pre-primary primarily primariness primary accent primary alcohol primary amine primary amoebic meningoencephalitis primary bedroom primary care primary cell wall primary cilium primary color primary colour primary data primary education primary energy primary explosive primary fire

Noun

  1. 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. - 2020 September 14, Richard H. Pildes, “The three words that can avert an...
    • Before Americans pick a president in November, they get to pick the candidates in a series of primaries and caucuses. […] Biden could still win New Hampshire’s primary through a write-in campaign, but the first...
  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.
    • 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...
  6. Any flight feather attached to the manus (hand) of a bird.
    • `Good Lord, look at that swiftlet, it's got two primaries missing from its left wing!' - 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 115:
  7. A primary colour.
    • 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:
  8. 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. 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. The primary site of a disease; the original location or source of the disease.
    • unknown primary
    • most common primaries
  11. A directly driven inductive coil, as in a transformer or induction motor that is magnetically coupled to a secondary.

Forms

primaries

Derived

Acela primary clown-car primary direct primary dual primary false primary firehouse primary invisible primary jungle primary money primary

Verb

  1. 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.
    • In the New England town where he ran a “couple of night clubs” . he was “primarying the mayor." - 1974, Stan Steiner, The Islands: the Worlds of the Puerto Ricans, page 191:
    • What political facts of life underpin the hopes and dreams of democratic politicians who would take on the awesome task of “primarying” a two-term incumbent governor - 1980, Empire State Report, volumes 6-7, page 303:
    • Each of the past few election cycles has featured at least one instance of “primarying,” a challenge to an incumbent on the grounds that he or she is not sufficiently partisan. - 2014, Sanford L. Jacobs, The Little...
  2. To take part in a primary election.
    • Both were worried that Bailey would break some of their delegate commitments to keep them from primarying. - 1981, Joseph I. Lieberman, The Legacy: Connecticut Politics, 1930-1980, page 171:
    • First, I'd challenge my opponent for the convention nomination. If I didn't prevail at the convention, that would be my answer. I wouldn't “primary” him—meaning, I wouldn't force a statewide primary election if he and I...
    • “That’s the fun part - finding out who’s the unknown person who may want to primary to get one of the positions,” Kolenberg said. - 2017 July 13, Angela Carella, “Stamford town clerk seeks nomination despite ballot...

Forms

primaries primarying primaried