Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Being or happening first in sequence of time; original.
- adj. Primary or fundamental: play a primordial role.
- adj. Biology Belonging to or characteristic of the earliest stage of development of an organism or a part: primordial cells.
- n. A basic principle.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- First in order; earliest; original; primitive; existing from the beginning.
- In anatomy, primitive; formative; in a rudimentary or embryonic state: opposed to definitive, or final, completed, or perfected: as, the primordial skull of man is partly membranous, partly cartilaginous.
- In botany, first formed: applied to the first true leaves formed by a young plant, also to the first fruit produced on a raceme or spike.
- In geology, containing the earliest traces of life.
- Synonyms Prime, etc. See primary.
- n. A first principle or element.
Wiktionary
- adj. first, earliest or original
- adj. biology characteristic of the earliest stage of the development of an organism, or relating to a primordium
- adj. primeval
- n. A first principle or element.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. First in order; primary; original; of earliest origin.
- adj. (Geol.) Of or pertaining to the lowest beds of the Silurian age, corresponding to the Acadian and Potsdam periods in American geology. It is called also
Cambrian , and by many geologists is separated from the Silurian. - adj. (Biol.) Originally or earliest formed in the growth of an individual or organ
- n. A first principle or element.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
Etymologies
- From the Latin prīmōrdiālis ("of the beginning"). Confer primordium and -al. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Late Latin prīmōrdiālis, from Latin prīmōrdium, origin : prīmus, first; see per1 in Indo-European roots + ōrdīrī, to begin to weave; see ar- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“He goes back to the first link, or to what he calls primordial generation.”
“The issue was exponential growth in primordial populations.”
“Paul Davies says: "The key to existence will be found not in primordial sludge, but in the nanotechnology of the living cell.”
“Democritus called his primordial element an atom; Anaxagoras, too, conceived a primordial element, but he called it merely a seed or thing; he failed to christen it distinctively.”
A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume I: The Beginnings of Science
“It’s not like these factors manifest themselves in primordial physical traits.”
“It is what Virginia Woolf called the primordial ooze – that fertile clay that we make things out of as writers.”
“But by studying small galaxies near the outer fringes of the Milky Way galaxy, the pair concluded that galaxies grew by swallowing smaller galaxies, so-called primordial fragments.”
The Washington Post: Leonard Searle, 79, dies; astronomer was former Carnegie Observatories director
“The paper does nothing to “oust” the so called primordial soup, it does add another potential energy source to the prebiotic system but its just another version of the hydrothermal energy systems that have been around for years.”
'Primordial Soup' Ousted from the Origin of Life?!? - The Panda's Thumb
“Racism and economic instability count high on the list of issues, but beneath virtually all of the causes there is a fundamental problem with external authority, in most cases (I would be willing to bet), resulting from primordial, that is, "childhood", abuse and unsuccessful attempts to declare and achieve personal freedom from an abusive parent or other adult.”
“First there was the sixteenth-century kabbalist Isaac Luria's notion of "tzimtzum," that is, the primordial kenotic space of Divine contraction out of which the pairs of opposites constituting the universe were said to arise.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘primordial’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
zealot, wistful, welter, wary, whimsical, warranted, vortex, vivisection, volatile, vitiate, viscous, visage and 787 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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RitaJKing's list
transparency
shimmer, fantastical, sansula, rapture, melancholy, obviated, parenthetically, apoplexy, indelible, pillory, demagogues, quark and 41 more...
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ash vocab
flippant, fillip, expiate, explicate, extirpate, facile, florid, fealty, allegiance, fetid, febrile, pert and 134 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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Cessilind's Words
dvorak, ingenuity, cessation, oblique, transverse, anvilicious, evoke, verisimilitude, integrity, strega, recumbent, depression and 164 more...
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Logodaedalus' Lexical Locutionary
Discombobulating the illiterate since the middle of the last century.
adiaphora, agitprop, alliteration, apophthegm, autarky, bête noire, bezoar, biorhythm, braggadocio, canaille, confabulate, confrère and 332 more...
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List Erine
cool mint antiseptic
shalom, cattywampus, bourgeoisie, aerophile, traverse, grotto, epicurean, ex cathedra, nautilus, epitaph, lathe, continuum and 753 more...
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Nightbloom's List
adumbrate, beatific, blandiloquent, caliginous, champagne, anointed, chatoyant, chiaroscuro, diffuse, dulcet, ebullient, efflorescence and 94 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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GRE 3500 P
paean, pall, palliate, pallid, palpable, palpitate, paltry, pan, panache, panegyric, pantomime, paraphernalia and 93 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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SAT PSAT ALPHABETICAL P
pacifistic, pacify, palatable, palaver, palliate, pallid, palpable, pamper, panacea, pandemic, pandemonium, panegyric and 209 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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my words
interminable, effete, convocation, philistines, malaise, foibles, deputation, anathematized, morass, stalwart, proselytize, abet and 405 more...
Tweets
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