primal
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: mathematics
sciences
Etymology: Probably partly from Medieval Latin prīmālis, from Latin prīmus (“first”) + -ālis, and partly from prime + -al.
Base: prime
Affixes: -al
Inflected forms:
form: primals
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: primals
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: primaling
pos: verb
tags: US
participle
present
form: primalling
pos: verb
tags: UK
participle
present
form: primaled
pos: verb
tags: US
participle
past
form: primaled
pos: verb
tags: US
past
form: primalled
pos: verb
tags: UK
participle
past
form: primalled
pos: verb
tags: UK
past
Senses:
gloss: Being the first in time or in history.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: primal man
gloss: Of greatest importance; primary.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: The most primal motion of all, of course, is vertical—a steady eternal fall into the infinity of space; speed cannot be ascribed to them, since, given the infinity of space and the absolute steadiness of the fall, no [relative] standard for it exists at all.
“We don’t know what life is. We do know what death is. It is change of habitat of ghost. I wish we had some sepate or house of bishops to tabulate these concepts. The law of togetherness and apartness is the most primal concept of life, Hence a crystal belongs as legitimately to the sphere of life as any seraph that blazes before the throne.” And so on for dreary pages.
But in the United States the whole movement has hardly reached the stage of toleration. It seems difficult for the great body of well-meaning, native-born citizens of mature vears, who are not of the wage-earning order, to understand how enormous have been the changes in the very frame-work of industrial life, and in the simplest and most primal facts affecting the social conditions in which the wage- workers, especially of the great cities and manufacturing sections of the land, now find themselves, year by year, more and more completely environed. The successful middle-aged American carries within his memory, as a rule, associations as to his own early struggles quite at variance with those that would now wait on him were he about to enter the arena of competition, armed only with such forcesas his natural physical nowers, partial training, and moderately developed mental capacities, might afford him at this time. Failing to put himself in the other man’s place, the matured man of business is almost invariably narrow and unjust in his estimate of the motives and aims of the labor-union organizer. There is also a justifiable feeling against the effort to make metes and bounds in the way of class distinctions.
“I think I trigger a lot of their primal rage,” Mr. Greenwald said, referring to Brazilians who support the president. “They view me as someone who deserves to be punished.”
gloss: Being one of the pieces of meat initially separated from the carcass during butchering, prior to division into smaller cuts.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
gloss: A primal cut (of meat).
pos: noun
gloss: To take part in primal therapy.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: One of my patients told me of an acquaintance who primaled in the shopping center. Janov described a patient who primaled on the tennis court. Apparently, once initiated, patients primal in any place at any time for the rest of their lives.
Primaling on the infant level seems so genuinely babyish that the unsophisticated observer may mistake it for psychotic behavior.
Derived words: nonprimal
primal horde
primality
primally
primal scene
primal scream
primal therapist
primal therapy
subprimal
Translations: