Primal

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Primal \Pri"mal\, a. [LL. primalis, fr. L. primus the first. See
     {Prime}, a.]
     First; primary; original; chief.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           It hath the primal eldest curse upon it. --Shak.


     [1913 Webster]
  
           The primal duties shine aloft like stars. --Wordsworth.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  primal
       adj 1: serving as an essential component; "a cardinal rule"; "the
              central cause of the problem"; "an example that was
              fundamental to the argument"; "computers are
              fundamental to modern industrial structure" [syn: {cardinal},
               {central}, {fundamental}, {key}]
       2: having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or
          original stage or state; "aboriginal forests"; "primal
          eras before the appearance of life on earth"; "the forest
          primeval"; "primordial matter"; "primordial forms of life"
          [syn: {aboriginal}, {primeval}, {primaeval}, {primordial}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  154 Moby Thesaurus words for "primal":
     ab ovo, abecedarian, aboriginal, antenatal, arch, atavistic,
     austere, autochthonous, banner, bare, basal, basic, basilar,
     beginning, bodily, born, budding, capital, cardinal, central,
     champion, chaste, chief, coeval, congenital, connatal, connate,
     connatural, constituent, constitutional, constitutive, creative,
     crowning, crucial, dominant, elemental, elementary, embryonic,
     essential, fetal, first, focal, foremost, formative, foundational,
     fundamental, generative, genetic, germinal, gestatory, great, gut,
     headmost, hegemonic, hereditary, homely, homespun, homogeneous,
     in embryo, in its infancy, in ovo, in the blood, in the bud,
     inaugural, inborn, inbred, incarnate, inceptive, inchoate,
     inchoative, incipient, incunabular, indigenous, indivisible,
     infant, infantile, inherited, initial, initiative, initiatory,
     innate, instinctive, instinctual, introductory, inventive,
     irreducible, leading, magisterial, main, master, material, mere,
     monolithic, nascent, natal, native, native to, natural, natural to,
     of a piece, of the essence, organic, original, overruling,
     paramount, parturient, physical, plain, postnatal, predominant,
     preeminent, pregnant, prenatal, preponderant, prevailing, primary,
     prime, primeval, primitive, primogenial, primordial, principal,
     pristine, procreative, protogenic, pure, pure and simple, radical,
     ranking, rudimental, rudimentary, ruling, seminal, severe,
     simon-pure, simple, single, sovereign, spare, star, stark, stellar,
     substantial, substantive, supereminent, temperamental, topflight,
     unadorned, uncluttered, underlying, undifferenced,
     undifferentiated, uniform, ur