Definition of "primary" []

• First or highest in rank, quality, or importance; principal. (adjective)
• Being or standing first in a list, series, or sequence. (adjective)
• Occurring first in time or sequence; earliest. (adjective)
• Being or existing as the first or earliest of a kind; primitive. (adjective)
• Geology Characteristic of or existing in a rock at the time of its formation. (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.

• "I think your question is, if the primary ends tomorrow, what happens to Obama's * primary* money."
• "Since the energy in the two circuits will be practically the same, it follows _that the ratio between the current in the primary and that in the secondary will be equal to the ratio of the number of turns in the secondary to the number of turns in the primary_."
• "The primary art is writing; —primary, if we regard the purpose abstracted from the different modes of realizing it, those steps of progression of which the instances are still visible in the lower degrees of civilization."