Lexic.us

Definition of Primitive

1. Noun. A person who belongs to an early stage of civilization.

2. Adjective. Belonging to an early stage of technical development; characterized by simplicity and (often) crudeness. "Primitive living conditions in the Appalachian mountains"

3. Noun. A mathematical expression from which another expression is derived.

4. Adjective. Little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral type. "The okapi is a short-necked primitive cousin of the giraffe"

5. Noun. A word serving as the basis for inflected or derived forms. "`pick' is the primitive from which `picket' is derived"

6. Adjective. Used of preliterate or tribal or nonindustrial societies. "Primitive societies"

7. Adjective. Of or created by one without formal training; simple or naive in style. "Primitive art such as that by Grandma Moses is often colorful and striking"

Definition of Primitive

1. a. Of or pertaining to the beginning or origin, or to early times; original; primordial; primeval; first; as, primitive innocence; the primitive church.

2. n. An original or primary word; a word not derived from another; -- opposed to derivative.

Definition of Primitive

1. Noun. An original or primary word; a word not derived from another, as opposed to (term derivative). ¹

2. Noun. (computing programming) A data type that is built into the programming language, as opposed to more complex structures. ¹

3. Noun. A basic geometric shape from which more complex shapes can be constructed. ¹

4. Noun. (mathematics) A function whose derivative is a given function; an antiderivative. ¹

5. Adjective. Of or pertaining to the beginning or origin, or to early times; original; primordial; primeval; first; as, primitive innocence; the primitive church. ¹

6. Adjective. Of or pertaining to a former time; old-fashioned; characterized by simplicity; as, a primitive style of dress. ¹

7. Adjective. Original; primary; radical; not derived; as, primitive verb in grammar. ¹

8. Adjective. (biology) Occurring in or characteristic of an early stage of development or evolution. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Primitive

1. [n -S]

Lexicographical Neighbors of Primitive

primigravids primigravity primine primines priming priming coat primings primip primipara primiparae

primiparas primiparous primipilar primips primitial primitive (current term) primitive art primitive concept primitive concepts primitive person

primitive recursion primitive recursive primitive root primitive streak primitive type primitive types primitively primitiveness primitivenesses primitives

Literary usage of Primitive

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. The American Journal of Psychology by Edward Bradford ( Titchener, Granville Stanley Hall (1918)
"As to the relation of these ideas in the mind of the primitive, our reading of the data shows a state of affairs somewhat as follows. ..."

2. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx (1906)
"The whole movement, therefore, seems to turn in a vicious circle, out of ; which we can only get by supposing ° primitive accumulation I (previous ..."

3. Projective Geometry by Oswald Veblen, John Wesley Young (1910)
"The nine primitive geometric forms. DEFINITION. ... The following are known as the primitive geometric forms of the second grade or of two dimensions: The ..."

4. The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the by Charles George Herbermann, Edward Aloysius Pace, Condé Bénoist Pallen, Thomas Joseph Shahan, John Joseph Wynne (1913)
"Hadden holds that primitive folk do not draw a sharp distinction between things ... Jastrow says that the savage and primitive man does not differentiate ..."

5. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, Henry Hart Milman (1846)
"The primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, ... 1*1 ii • primitive IV. But the primitive Christian demonstrated his faith TnE by his virtues ..."

6. A Text Book of the History of Architecture by Alfred Dwight Foster Hamlin (1909)
"primitive ARCHITECTURE is therefore a subject for the . archaeologist ... If we may judge of the condition of the primitive races of antiquity by that of ..."

7. A Text-Book in the History of Education by Paul Monroe (1905)
"primitive society reveals education in its simplest form ; yet in this early ... Only in the highest stages of primitive life, where it passes from the ..."

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