primary
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: aeronautics
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business
chemistry
electrical-engineering
electricity
electromagnetism
electronics
energy
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geography
geology
government
medicine
military
natural-sciences
ornithology
physical-sciences
physics
political-science
politics
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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.
Inflected forms:
form: more primary
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most primary
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: primaries
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: primaries
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: primarying
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: primaried
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: primaried
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: First or earliest in a group or series.
pos: adj
examples: Children attend primary school, and teenagers attend secondary school.
the church of Christ, in its primary institution
, Book II, Chapter VIII
These I call original, or primary, qualities of body.
gloss: Main; principal; chief; placed ahead of others.
pos: adj
examples: Preferred stock has primary claim on dividends, ahead of common stock.
gloss: Earliest formed; fundamental.
pos: adj
gloss: Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some quality or property in the first degree; having undergone the first stage of substitution or replacement.
pos: adj
gloss: Relating to the place where a disorder or disease started to occur.
pos: adj
gloss: Relating to day-to-day care provided by health professionals such as nurses, general practitioners, dentists etc.
pos: adj
gloss: A primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party, or the first round of a two-round election.
pos: noun
examples: In recent primaries, for example, nearly 4% of absentees were rejected in Philadelphia; 8% in Kentucky; and 20% in parts of New York City.
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 sanctioned Democratic contest is in South Carolina in February.
gloss: The first year of grade school.
pos: noun
gloss: A base or fundamental component; something that is irreducible.
pos: noun
gloss: The most massive component of a gravitationally bound system, such as a planet in relation to its satellites.
pos: noun
gloss: A primary school.
pos: noun
examples: Excellence in Cities offers a further development of this approach, whereby secondary schools operate with small clusters of primaries as mini-EAZs.
gloss: Any flight feather attached to the manus (hand) of a bird.
pos: noun
examples: `Good Lord, look at that swiftlet, it's got two primaries missing from its left wing!'
gloss: A primary colour.
pos: noun
examples: By adding and subtracting the three primaries, cyan, yellow, and magenta are produced. These are called subtractive primaries.
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
gloss: The primary site of a disease; the original location or source of the disease.
pos: noun
examples: unknown primary
most common primaries
gloss: A directly driven inductive coil, as in a transformer or induction motor that is magnetically coupled to a secondary.
pos: noun
gloss: 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.
pos: verb
tags: US
intransitive
transitive
examples: In the New England town where he ran a “couple of night clubs” . he was “primarying the mayor."
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
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.
The ad calls for loyal Tea Party members to step forward and run against all eighty-seven of the traitors in order to primary them.
These instances of “primarying,” according to many, make Congress more partisan and extreme.
According to Boatright, 774 instances of challengers “primarying” sitting House incumbents occurred between 1970 and 2010.
Democrats have made “primarying” a key technique for shifting the balance of power in Congress to the left.
In the last midterm election, every member of Congress who was defeated in a primary lost to a candidate who was more ideologically extreme. The message that sends to every other member is clear: If you work across the aisle to solve problems, prepare to be primaried and potentially defeated.
Richard Hopkins, an epidemiologist who spent 19 years at the Florida Department of Health, told the Post, in reference to DeSantis administration officials, “They keep hoping it’s going to go away by itself. I don’t know what’s going on -- whether they’re afraid that they will get primaried by someone to their right if they take appropriate public health action.”
Trump has most Republican congressmen leery of opposing him on any issue, mainly out of fear of getting "primaried" by a Trump loyalist.
“My message to Kevin McCarthy is, take all of her committee assignments away … also, don’t support her when she runs for re-election again and try to get her primaried. If you say this is not your party, actually call it out and hold her accountable,” Hogg told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day.”
gloss: To take part in a primary election.
pos: verb
tags: US
intransitive
transitive
examples: Both were worried that Bailey would break some of their delegate commitments to keep them from primarying.
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 were the only two candidates in the field.
“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.
Related words: first
primus inter pares
Derived words: 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
primary forest
primary goods
primary healthcare
primary hypothermia
primary ideal
primary immunodeficiency
primary industry
primary key
primary legislation
primary life support system
primary market
primary memory
primary metabolite
primary myelofibrosis
primary offense
primary phosphine
primary planet
primary poverty
primary producer
primary production
primary radar
primary rate interface
primary reinforcement
primary research
primary residence
primary school
primary sector
primary source
primary storage
primary stress
primary structure
primary surveillance radar
primary tense
primary time
primary time standard
primary tooth
primary transcript
primary valence
primary work
primary world
pseudoprimary
secundo-primary
subprimary
superprimary
titan primary
Acela primary
clown-car primary
direct primary
dual primary
false primary
firehouse primary
invisible primary
jungle primary
money primary
Translations: