Definition of "original" []

• Preceding all others in time; first. (adjective)
• Not derived from something else; fresh and unusual: an original play, not an adaptation. (adjective)
• Showing a marked departure from previous practice; new: a truly original approach. See Synonyms at new. (adjective)
• Productive of new things or new ideas; inventive: an original mind. (adjective)
• Being the source from which a copy, reproduction, or translation is made. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Her composition was a good example of what a silly child, with an even sillier mother could do, in the way of original work, for surely the essay was _original_."
• "_Nouns_, or the names of the objects of our perceptions, doubtless constituted the original class of words; (if I may be allowed to assume such a hypothesis as an _original_ class of words;) but the ever-active principle of association, soon transformed nouns into verbs, by making them, when employed in a particular manner, expressive of affirmation."
• "” Hence that admirable writer postulates some “terrible original calamity”; and thus the hateful doctrine, theologically called “original sin, ” becomes to him almost as certain as that “the world exists, and as the existence of God."