Primordial
adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A first principle or element.
- 2 A primordial condition or state.
"With a horrified shriek she tore herself from Tarzan’s arms, and the ape-man turned just in time to ward with his arm a terrific blow that De Coude had aimed at his head. Once, twice, three times the heavy stick fell with lightning rapidity, and each blow aided in the transition of the ape-man back to the primordial."
- 1 First, earliest or original. not-comparable
"the primordial facts of our intelligent nature"
- 2 Characteristic of the earliest stage of the development of an organism, or relating to a primordium. not-comparable
"a primordial leaf; a primordial cell"
- 3 Primeval. not-comparable
- 4 Of an element or isotope: occurring primordially (on Earth) (i.e. inherited from when the Earth was formed); because it is stable, or radioactive but so long-lived that some is left over from when the Earth was formed. For example, primordial radioisotopes (T = half-life in years) include uranium-235 (T = 7×10⁸), potassium-40 (T = 1.25×10⁹), uranium-238 (T = 4.5×10⁹), and thorium-232 (T = 1.4×10¹⁰). not-comparable
- 1 having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state wordnet
Example
More examples"The first centuries of superluminal space exploration proved that neighbouring space was mostly desert as other life discovered was in a primordial state."
Etymology
From the Latin prīmōrdiālis (“of the beginning”). Compare primordium and -al.
Related phrases
More for "primordial"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.