Noun: primary
| Singular | primary |
| Plural | primaries |
Sample Sentences
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In recent primaries, for example, nearly 4% of absentees were rejected in Philadelphia; 8% in Kentucky; and 20% in parts of New York City. [2020 September 14, Richard H. Pildes, “The three words that can avert an election nightmare”, in CNN:]
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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. [2024 January 22, Zachary B. Wolf, “2024 US presidential primaries, explained”, in CNN:]
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Excellence in Cities offers a further development of this approach, whereby secondary schools operate with small clusters of primaries as mini-EAZs. [2001, David Woods, Martyn Cribb, Effective LEAs and school improvement:]
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`Good Lord, look at that swiftlet, it's got two primaries missing from its left wing!' [2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 115:]
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By adding and subtracting the three primaries, cyan, yellow, and magenta are produced. These are called subtractive primaries. [2003, Julie A Jacko, Andrew Sears, The human-computer interaction handbook:]
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unknown primary
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most common primaries
Nouns inflected like primary
clitoridectomy,
royal jelly,
whoopsy,
surrogacy,
urinary,
rastrography,
renoscopy,
sourtop blueberry,
forcible entry,
superficiary,
lipidosity,
potability,
phonography,
hyperproperty,
greenery,
conjugality,
ring singularity,
Brittany,
ignobility,
obscurity, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
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. See: Latin Nouns '
prīmārius', French Nouns '
primaire'.