primitive

primitive
    adj 1: belonging to an early stage of technical development;
           characterized by simplicity and (often) crudeness; "the
           crude weapons and rude agricultural implements of early
           man"; "primitive movies of the 1890s"; "primitive living
           conditions in the Appalachian mountains" [syn: {crude},
           {primitive}, {rude}]
    2: little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier ancestral
       type; "archaic forms of life"; "primitive mammals"; "the
       okapi is a short-necked primitive cousin of the giraffe"
       [syn: {archaic}, {primitive}]
    3: used of preliterate or tribal or nonindustrial societies;
       "primitive societies"
    4: 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" [syn: {primitive}, {naive}]
    n 1: a person who belongs to an early stage of civilization
         [syn: {primitive}, {primitive person}]
    2: a mathematical expression from which another expression is
       derived
    3: a word serving as the basis for inflected or derived forms;
       "`pick' is the primitive from which `picket' is derived"
    

Primitive \Prim"i*tive\, a. [L. primitivus, fr. primus the
   first: cf. F. primitif. See {Prime}, a.]
   1. Of or pertaining to the beginning or origin, or to early
      times; original; primordial; primeval; first; as,
      primitive innocence; the primitive church. "Our primitive
      great sire." --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Of or pertaining to a former time; old-fashioned;
      characterized by simplicity; as, a primitive style of
      dress.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. Original; primary; radical; not derived; as, primitive
      verb in grammar.
      [1913 Webster]

   {Primitive axes of coordinate} (Geom.), that system of axes
      to which the points of a magnitude are first referred,
      with reference to a second set or system, to which they
      are afterward referred.

   {Primitive chord} (Mus.), that chord, the lowest note of
      which is of the same literal denomination as the
      fundamental base of the harmony; -- opposed to derivative.
      --Moore (Encyc. of Music).

   {Primitive circle} (Spherical Projection), the circle cut
      from the sphere to be projected, by the primitive plane.
      

   {Primitive colors} (Paint.), primary colors. See under
      {Color}.

   {Primitive Fathers} (Eccl.), the acknowledged Christian
      writers who flourished before the Council of Nice, A. D.
      325. --Shipley.

   {Primitive groove} (Anat.), a depression or groove in the
      epiblast of the primitive streak. It is not connected with
      the medullary groove, which appears later and in front of
      it.

   {Primitive plane} (Spherical Projection), the plane upon
      which the projections are made, generally coinciding with
      some principal circle of the sphere, as the equator or a
      meridian.

   {Primitive rocks} (Geol.), primary rocks. See under
      {Primary}.

   {Primitive sheath}. (Anat.) See {Neurilemma}.

   {Primitive streak} or {Primitive trace} (Anat.), an opaque
      and thickened band where the mesoblast first appears in
      the vertebrate blastoderm.
      [1913 Webster]

   Syn: First; original; radical; pristine; ancient; primeval;
        antiquated; old-fashioned.
        [1913 Webster]
    

Primitive \Prim"i*tive\, n.
   An original or primary word; a word not derived from another;
   -- opposed to derivative.
   [1913 Webster]
    

primitive

   <programming> A {function}, {operator}, or {type} which is
   built into a programming language (or {operating system}),
   either for speed of execution or because it would be
   impossible to write it in the language.  Primitives typically
   include the arithmetic and logical operations (plus, minus,
   and, or, etc.) and are implemented by a small number of
   {machine language} instructions.

   (1995-05-01)
    

188 Moby Thesaurus words for "primitive":
      Bronze Age man, Gothic, Hominidae, Iron Age man, Neanderthal,
      Stone Age man, ab ovo, abecedarian, aboriginal, aborigine,
      ancestral, ancient, animal, antediluvian, antenatal,
      antepatriarchal, anthropoid, ape-man, archaic, atavistic,
      autochthon, autochthonous, barbarian, barbaric, barbarous, basal,
      basic, basilar, beginning, bestial, brutal, brutish, budding,
      bushman, cave dweller, caveman, central, childlike, coarse,
      cognate, constituent, constitutive, creative, crucial, crude,
      derivation, derivative, doublet, earliest, earliest inhabitant,
      early, elemental, elementary, embryonic, endemic, eponym,
      erstwhile, essential, etymon, fetal, first, first comer, fore,
      formative, former, fossil man, foundational, fundamental,
      generative, genetic, germinal, gestatory, gut, homebred, homegrown,
      hominid, humanoid, ill-bred, immemorial, impolite, in embryo,
      in its infancy, in ovo, in the bud, inaugural, inceptive, inchoate,
      inchoative, incipient, incunabular, indigene, indigenous, infant,
      infantile, initial, initiative, initiatory, introductory,
      inventive, late, local, local yokel, man of old, material,
      missing link, naive, nascent, natal, native, native-born,
      noncivilized, of the essence, old, olden, once, onetime, original,
      outlandish, parturient, past, patriarchal, persistent, postnatal,
      preadamite, preglacial, pregnant, prehistoric, prehistoric man,
      prehuman, prenatal, previous, primal, primary, primate, prime,
      primeval, primitive settler, primogenial, primoprimitive,
      primordial, prior, pristine, procreative, protogenic,
      protohistoric, protohuman, quondam, radical, raw, recent, root,
      rough, rough-and-ready, rude, rudimental, rudimentary, savage,
      seminal, simple, simplistic, sometime, substantial, substantive,
      then, troglodyte, troglodytic, uncivil, uncivilized, uncombed,
      uncouth, uncultivated, uncultured, underived, underlying,
      undeveloped, unkempt, unlicked, unpolished, unrefined, unschooled,
      unsophisticated, untamed, untaught, untrained, untutored, ur,
      vernacular, wild