Word: prime Part of Speech: noun Etymology: From Middle English prime, from Old French prime and its etymon, Latin prīmus (“first”), from earlier prīsmos < *prīsemos < Proto-Italic *priisemos, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“beyond, before”). Doublet of primo and primus. The noun sense "apostrophe-like symbol" originates from the fact that the symbol ′ was originally a superscript Roman numeral one. Pronunciation: /pɹaɪ̯m/ 1. The first hour of daylight; the first canonical hour. Labels: historical Example: His larum bell might lowd and wyde be hard, When cause requyrd, but neuer out of time; Early and late it rong, at euening and at prime. 2. The religious service appointed to this hour. 3. The early morning generally. Labels: obsolete Example: They all as glad, as birdes of ioyous Pryme […] 4. The earliest stage of something. Labels: archaic Example: To this end we see how quickly sundry artes Mechanical were found out in the very prime of the world. Example: 1645, Edmund Waller, “To a very young Lady” (earlier title: “To my young Lady Lucy Sidney”) in Poems, &c. Written upon Several Occasions, and to Several Persons, London: H. Herringman, 1686, p. 101, Hope waits upon the flowry prime, 5. The most active, thriving, or successful stage or period. Example: When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver’d o'er with white; Example: Short were her Marriage-Joys; for in the Prime, / Of Youth, her Lord expir’d before his time: […] 6. The chief or best individual or part. Example: Give him always of the prime; And but a little at a time. 7. Something which is first in importance or rank: a prime defense company, mortgage lender, etc. Example: I found just as we were fearful we would find that many of the big primes felt that this was a change of policy on the part of the U.S. Government to let the big fellows take care of it, and they were ready to cut back, and in many instances were cutting back[…] Example: The large primes are struggling to do things the way Anduril does, because they're publicly traded companies with an existing investor class that invested in them to be a certain type of company. 8. The first note or tone of a musical scale. 9. The first defensive position, with the sword hand held at head height, and the tip of the sword at head height. 10. A prime element of a mathematical structure, particularly a prime number. Example: Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes. Example: 3 is a prime. 11. A four-card hand containing one card of each suit in the game of primero; the opposite of a flush in poker. 12. A series of consecutive blocks. A prime of six prevents the opponent's pieces from passing. Example: I'm threatening to build a prime here. 13. The symbol ′ used to indicate feet, minutes, derivation and other measures and mathematical operations. 14. Any number expressing the combining weight or equivalent of any particular element; so called because these numbers were respectively reduced to their lowest relative terms on the fixed standard of hydrogen as 1. Labels: obsolete 15. An inch, as composed of twelve seconds in the duodecimal system. 16. The priming in a flintlock. Labels: obsolete Example: […] he pull’d the Trigger, but Providence being pleas’d to preserve me for some other Purpose, the Cock snapp’d, and miss’d Fire. Whether the Prime was wet in the Pan, or by what other Miracle it was I escap’d his Fury, I cannot say […] 17. Contraction of prime lens, a film lens. Labels: abbreviation, alt-of, contraction Example: Tomlinson, Shawn M. (2015), Going Pro for $200 & How to Choose a Prime Lens, →ISBN, page 72: “By the time I shifted to my first autofocus film SLR with the Pentax PZ-10, primes were considered things of the past” 18. A feather, from the wing of the cock ostrich, that is of the palest possible shade. 19. A stimulus which causes priming.