[ US /ˈpɹɪmətɪv, ˈpɹɪmɪtɪv/ ]
[ UK /pɹˈɪmɪtˌɪv/ ]
NOUN
  1. a person who belongs to an early stage of civilization
  2. a word serving as the basis for inflected or derived forms
    `pick' is the primitive from which `picket' is derived
  3. a mathematical expression from which another expression is derived
ADJECTIVE
  1. little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral type
    the okapi is a short-necked primitive cousin of the giraffe
    archaic forms of life
    primitive mammals
  2. 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
  3. belonging to an early stage of technical development; characterized by simplicity and (often) crudeness
    primitive movies of the 1890s
    primitive living conditions in the Appalachian mountains
    the crude weapons and rude agricultural implements of early man
  4. used of preliterate or tribal or nonindustrial societies
    primitive societies
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How To Use primitive In A Sentence

  • By the 3rd millennium B.C., they had developed a primitive form of cost accounting, elaborate techniques of budgeting and planning, and calculative techniques for devising labor standards.
  • The largest of these primitive ‘trees’ were giant lycopods reaching upwards of 20 meters, but most of the plants grew to less than a meter above the ground.
  • Accordingly he compromised by saying that while the present world as it is is not eternal, it came from a primitive "hyle" or matter, which was eternal. A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy
  • Many primitive societies attach existential weight to the names of things.
  • They stood, without any respect for regularity, on each side of a straggling kind of unpaved street, where children, almost in a primitive state of nakedness, lay sprawling, as if to be crushed by the hoofs of the first passing horse. The Waverley
  • The success of the barometer led to the development of primitive air pumps.
  • Myles L. Miller, Scott S. Hughes, 2009, Mixing primitive and evolved olivine tholeiite magmas in the Eastern Snake River Plain, Idaho Scientific Articles on Yellowstone
  • Furthermore, outgroup comparison (with macaques, for example) indicates that some of these characters are primitive for the cercopithecid clade that includes these species (Papionina). Archive 2006-06-01
  • The sound of the human whistle, like that in the most primitive instrumental forms - a whistle fashioned from a hollow tube of wood or straw - is made by the turbulence generated in an airstream at the narrow orifice formed by pursing the lips.
  • * In primitive conditions, given the unsually demanding task (compared to other mammals) of raising human babies, paternal investment in offspring is required. The Volokh Conspiracy » Interracial Marriage Rates Going Up
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