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primal

[prahy-muhl]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective

first; original; primeval: primal eras before the appearance of life on earth.

of first importance; fundamental: the primal resources of a nation.

Origin:
1535–45; < Medieval Latin prīmālis. See prime, -al¹

Related forms

non·pri·mal, adjective

Can be confused: primal, primeval, primordial.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Primal is always a great word to know.

So is slumgullion. Does it mean:

a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

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Example Sentences

His specialty is taking a primal wish of kids, transporting them to a fantasyland and then marooning them there.

Many angry, disappointed academic newbies have the same primal response.

It is also an example of what seems to be a primal human interaction-the mutual direction of gaze.

EXPAND

His specialty is taking a primal wish of kids, transporting them to a fantasyland and then marooning them there.

Many angry, disappointed academic newbies have the same primal response.

It is also an example of what seems to be a primal human interaction-the mutual direction of gaze.

The airborne combat between bat and mantis is primal.

Landscapes shape us and speak to us on a primal level.

Foucan's performance is clearly something real, raw and primal.

In other words, the abstract pitches have become a primal reward cue, the cultural equivalent of a bell that makes us drool.

Walker is also a pop-group alumnus in pursuit of the primal.

There are debates over how to resolve bullying, warnings to other scholars, and even primal cries for help.

Something primal has happened: both a political and a moral order have collapsed.

Their fear and desire reveals something primal about our species.

Evolution may have piggybacked brain functions that regulate social interaction on top of a more primal pain system.

There is something primal and terrifying about the prospect of being sucked into the depths of the sea.

Even after multiple viewings, this one still maintains its primal power to manipulate an audience.

It roots out and destroys something precious within the core of our primal nature: the sense of mystery.

It used to be possible to administer a primal face-to-face insult by pretending not to know someone.

Men would be motivated to find work if their primal wish to be breadwinners were recognised.

Its organic-sounding world music seems both primal and sophisticated at the same time.

She tries to leave, but his approach calls to her as a primal scream.

During the quietest part of the second movement, a crow cawed in primal accompaniment.

It is a primal force nearly as old as humankind itself.

OF all the ways people experience themselves, perhaps none is so primal as the sense of their own bodies.

They are less capable of debate when they are dealing with primal instincts.

The more daily primal exercise your dog gets, the calmer he'll when you come home.

Horror manifests the primal fear: loss of will, helplessness.

But there's something primal and touching about the way your monsters move.

Freud believed that dreams were compounded out of the primal matter of the unconscious and the prosaic events of daily life.

If they didn't possess these primal instincts of survival then they wouldn't be in elite positions.

Walking is a primal exercise that awakens all of her pack instincts.

Furthermore, our primal nature avoids food that are poisonous.

It's a primal feeling brought down from the trees and probably preserved with the beginnings of culture.

Cooking directly over a live flame is primal and sometimes unpredictable, and every master of the grill.

Yet working from primal instinct was his driving fantasy.

Stem cells are primal cells that have the potential to transform into various cells and tissues found in the human body.

At some level of consciousness, this reaction may be linked to our ancestors' primal.

These dark remnants of collapsed stars seem almost designed to play on some of our primal fears:.

My first instinct is that these are the guys who think they transcend the common primal tendencies of regular people.

Many of the homeless have that ability to connect in a primal way.

It was emitted at the time of the last scattering of photons within the clogged up primal cloud of particles.

The trolls manage to be grotesque but not cartoonish, and their primal growling will rattle your reptile brain.

Helping others may be as primal a human pleasure as food.

Quick object identification is a primal evolutionary necessity, and it's a foundational way our visual interpretation works.

It's wall-to-wall primal comedy, from trampoline falls to groin-kicks to old people getting hit by kites.

Virtually all, of course, describe us as incredibly stupid and as having broken a primal bond with our readers.

What may seem the essence of portentous symbolism when taken out of context retains its primal force within the film.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

primal (ˈpraɪməl)

—*adj*
1.	first or original
2.	chief or most important

[C17: from Medieval Latin prīmālis, from Latin prīmus first]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

primal

c.1600, "belonging to the earliest age," from M.L. primalis "primary" (late 15c.), from L. primus "first" (see prime (adj.)). Psychological sense, in ref. to Freud's theory of behaviors springing from the earliest stage of emotional development, is attested from 1918.

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

primal pri·mal (prī'məl)
adj.

Being first in time; original.
Of first or central importance; primary.

pri·mal'i·ty (-māl'ĭ-tē) n.

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Matching Quote

"For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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