First or highest in rank, dignity, or importance; chief; principal.First in order of being, of thought, or of time; original; primitive; first.First or lowest in order of growth or development; elementary; preparatory.First in use or intention; radical; original: as, the primary sense of a word.In ornithology, of the first rank or order among the flight-feathers or remiges of the wing; situated upon the manus or pinion-bone, as a feather: correlated with secondary and tertiary or tertial. See II.In geology, lowest in the sequence of geological formations: said of rocks.n. That which stands first or highest in rank or importance, as opposed to secondary; that to which something else is subordinate.n. In ornithology, one of the remiges, flight-feathers, or large quills which are situated upon the manus. pinion-bone, or distal segment of the wing.n. In entomology, one of the anterior or fore wings: used especially in descriptions of the Lepidoptera. See cut under Cirrophanus.n. In United States politics, a meeting of voters belonging to the same political party in a ward, township, or other election district, held for the purpose of nominating candidates for office, choosing delegates to a convention, etc.n. A planet in relation to its satellite or satellites: as, the earth is the primary of the moon.The body of the bark which lies between the epidermis and stele (central cylinder) in the stems of phanerogams, as also the corresponding zone in the root. In this sense sometimes simply cortex. Strasburger.n. In electricity: In an alternating-current transformer, induction-motor, or other apparatus containing two circuits in inductive relation to one another, that circuit which receives power from the impressed electromotive force.n. Sometimes, in an alternating-current transformer, the high potential coil, the low potential coil being the secondary.n. In physiological optics, one of the primary colors or primary color-sensations.n. A lesion of the initial stage of syphilis, a chancre: usually in the plural.n. In Echinodermata: In echinoids, a plate which extends from the outer edge of an ambulacral area to the median suture of that area.n. In echinoids, a spine of the largest order extending beyond the shorter secondaries.n. In crinoids, according to Bather's terminology, any one of those plates which are first developed in the ontogeny and phylogeny, including the abactinal system of columnals, cirrals, infrabasals, basals, radials, brachials, pinnulars, and the actinal system of orals and ambulacrals.n. In the Echinoidea, one of the large and completely developed tubercles on the surface of the test, which serve as articulating bases for the spines.