 primitive |
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| 1. | [ adjective ] belonging to an early stage of technical development; characterized by simplicity and (often) crudeness | |
| Synonyms: | rude crude | |
| Examples: | "the crude weapons and rude agricultural implements of early man" "primitive movies of the 1890s" "primitive living conditions" |
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| Related terms: | early | |
| 2. | [ adjective ] being or resembling a force of nature | |
| Synonyms: | elemental | |
| Examples: | "elemental violence" |
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| Related terms: | natural | |
| 3. | [ adjective ] little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral type | |
| Synonyms: | archaic | |
| Examples: | "archaic forms of life" "primitive mammals" "the okapi is a short-necked primitive cousin of the giraffe" |
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| Related terms: | early | |
| 4. | [ adjective ] not derived from or reducible to something else; basic | |
| Synonyms: | primary | |
| Examples: | "a primary instinct" |
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| Related terms: | underived | |
| 5. | [ adjective ] (anthropology; of societies) preliterate or tribal or nonindustrial | |
| Examples: | "primitive societies" |
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| Related terms: | anthropology noncivilized | |
| 6. | [ adjective ] (linguistics) serving as the basis for derived or inflected forms | |
| Examples: | "`pick' is the primitive word from which `picket' is derived" |
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| Related terms: | derivative uninflected | |
| 7. | [ adjective ] (fine arts) of or created by one without formal training; simple or naive in style | |
| Examples: | "primitive art such as that by Grandma Moses is often colorful and striking" |
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| Related terms: | fine_arts untrained | |
| 8. | [ noun ] (linguistics) a word serving as the basis for inflected or derived forms | |
| Examples: | "`pick' is the primitive from which `picket' is derived" |
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| Related terms: | word | |
| 9. | [ adjective ] (mathematics) being an algebraic or geometric expression from which another expression is derived | |
| Related terms: | underived | |
| 10. | [ noun ] (mathematics) a mathematical expression from which another expression is derived | |
| Related terms: | formula | |
| 11. | [ noun ] (anthropology,sociology) a person who belongs to early stage of civilization | |
| Synonyms: | primitive_person | |
| Related terms: | person savage caveman wild_man aborigine missing_link Piltdown_man Mound_Builder Basket_Maker homo_erectus Heidelberg_man Aryan | |
| Similar spelling: |
primitively promotive primitivism prime_time promote primate premeditate promoter Primates premeditated pyrimidine primidone premature promethium Prometheus primateship prematurely |
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