primary

English

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Etymology

Borrowing from Latin prīmārius ("of the first”, “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

Adjective

primary (comparative more primary, superlative most primary)

  1. The first in a group or series.
    Children attend primary school, teenagers attend secondary school.
  2. That which is placed ahead of others.
    Preferred stock has primary claim on dividends, ahead of common stock.

Derived terms

Translations

first in a group or series
that which is placed ahead of others
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 Help:How to check translations.
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See also

Noun

primary (plural primaries)

  1. A primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party.
  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.
  5. 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.
  6. (ornithology) Any flight feather attached to the manus (hand) of a bird.
  7. 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.
  8. (electronics) A directly driven inductive coil, as in a transformer or induction motor that is magnetically coupled to a secondary

Translations

primary election — see primary election
first year of grade school
base or fundamental component
ornithology: flight feather
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 Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

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

  1. (US, intransitive) To take part in a primary election.

External links

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Last modified on 27 March 2013, at 10:27