primal

English

Etymology

From Medieval Latin primalis, from Latin primus (“first”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɹaɪməl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪməl

Adjective

primal (not comparable)

1. Being the first in time or in history.

   primal man

2. Of greatest importance; primary.
   • 1870, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche: The Preplatonic Philosophers‎^[1], page 127:

     The most primal motion of all, of course, is vertical—a steady eternal fall into the infinity of space; speed cannot be ascribed to them, since, given the infinity of space and the absolute steadiness of the fall, no [relative] standard for it exists at all.

   • 1873, The Lancet 1873: Issue 2625‎^[2], Elsevier Limited, page 882:

     “We don’t know what life is. We do know what death is. It is change of habitat of ghost. I wish we had some sepate or house of bishops to tabulate these concepts. The law of togetherness and apartness is the most primal concept of life, Hence a crystal belongs as legitimately to the sphere of life as any seraph that blazes before the throne.” And so on for dreary pages.

   • 1885, North American Review 1885-01: Volume 140, Issue 338‎^[3], North American Review, pages 49–50:

     But in the United States the whole movement has hardly reached the stage of toleration. It seems difficult for the great body of well-meaning, native-born citizens of mature vears, who are not of the wage-earning order, to understand how enormous have been the changes in the very frame-work of industrial life, and in the simplest and most primal facts affecting the social conditions in which the wage- workers, especially of the great cities and manufacturing sections of the land, now find themselves, year by year, more and more completely environed. The successful middle-aged American carries within his memory, as a rule, associations as to his own early struggles quite at variance with those that would now wait on him were he about to enter the arena of competition, armed only with such forcesas his natural physical nowers, partial training, and moderately developed mental capacities, might afford him at this time. Failing to put himself in the other man’s place, the matured man of business is almost invariably narrow and unjust in his estimate of the motives and aims of the labor-union organizer. There is also a justifiable feeling against the effort to make metes and bounds in the way of class distinctions.

3. (meat trade) Being one of the pieces of meat initially separated from the carcass during butchering, prior to division into smaller cuts.

Synonyms

• (first in time or history): aboriginal, primaeval/primeval, primordial
• (of greatest importance): primary

Derived terms

• primal horde
• primality
• primally
• primal scene
• primal scream
• primal therapist
• primal therapy

 

Translations

Being the first in time, or history

• Bulgarian: първичен (bg) (pǎrvičen)
• Finnish: alkukantainen (fi)
• Galician: primeiro (gl)
• Maori: taketake
• Russian: перви́чный (ru) (pervíčnyj), изнача́льный (ru) (iznačálʹnyj)
• Spanish: primer (es)
• Turkish: ilkel (tr)

Being of greatest importance; primary

• Bulgarian: основен (bg) (osnoven), най-важен (naj-važen)
• Finnish: tärkein (fi), perus- (fi)
• Hungarian: elsődleges (hu)

Noun

primal (plural primals)

1. A primal cut (of meat).

Verb

primal (third-person singular simple present primals, present participle primaling or primalling, simple past and past participle primaled or primalled)

1. (intransitive) To take part in primal therapy.
   • 1979, The Journal of Orgonomy, volume 13, number 1, page 108:

     One of my patients told me of an acquaintance who primaled in the shopping center. Janov described a patient who primaled on the tennis court. Apparently, once initiated, patients primal in any place at any time for the rest of their lives.

   • 1982, Lawrence Edwin Abt, Irving R. Stuart, The Newer Therapies: A Sourcebook, page 369:

     Primaling on the infant level seems so genuinely babyish that the unsophisticated observer may mistake it for psychotic behavior.

References

• Primal cut on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• imparl

Catalan

Etymology

From Medieval Latin *prīmāle, from Latin prīmus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [pɾiˈmal]

Noun

primal m (plural primals, feminine primala)

1. A sheep, goat, or bovine from the time it has lost its milk teeth until these are replaced with a second adult set (i.e. older than a year but less than three years of age).

Usage notes

• For sheep, the first set of adult teeth appear at about 14 months and are lost between 20 and 24 months of age. Before this time they are called borrecs/borregues and afterwards they are called terçats/terçades.

Further reading

• “primal” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Spanish

Etymology

primo +‎ -al

Adjective

primal m or f (masculine and feminine plural primales)

1. yearling (between one and two years of age) (of sheep and goats)

See also

• andosco

Further reading

• “primal”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10