- Not derived from something else; primary or basic.
- Of or relating to an earliest or original stage or state; primeval.
- Being little evolved from an early ancestral type.
- Characterized by simplicity or crudity; unsophisticated: primitive weapons. See synonyms at rude.
- Anthropology. Of or relating to a nonindustrial, often tribal culture, especially one that is characterized by a low level of economic complexity: primitive societies.
- Linguistics.
- Serving as the basis for derived or inflected forms: Pick is the primitive word from which picket is derived.
- Being a protolanguage: primitive Germanic.
- Relating or belonging to forces of nature; elemental: primitive passions.
- Of or created by an artist without formal training; simple or naive in style.
- Of or relating to the work of an artist from a nonindustrial, often tribal culture, especially a culture that is characterized by a low level of economic complexity.
- Of or relating to late medieval or pre-Renaissance European painters or sculptors.
- Biology. Occurring in or characteristic of an early stage of development or evolution.
- Anthropology. A person belonging to a nonindustrial, often tribal society, especially a society characterized by a low level of economic complexity.
- An unsophisticated person.
- One that is at a low or early stage of development.
- One belonging to an early stage in the development of an artistic trend, especially a painter of the pre-Renaissance period.
- An artist having or affecting a simple, direct, unschooled style, as of painting.
- A self-taught artist.
- A work of art created by a primitive artist.
- Linguistics.
- A word or word element from which another word is derived by morphological or historical processes or from which inflected forms are derived.
- A basic and indivisible unit of linguistic analysis. Also called prime.
- Mathematics. An algebraic or geometric expression from which another expression is derived.
- Computer Science. A basic or fundamental unit of machine instruction or translation.
[Middle English, from Old French primitif, primitive, from Latin prīmitīvus, from prīmitus, at first, from prīmus, first.]
primitively prim'i·tive·ly adv.primitiveness prim'i·tive·ness or prim'i·tiv'i·ty n.







