primary time

English

Noun

primary time (countable and uncountable, plural primary times)

1. The point in time when something is initiated; the start time.
   • 2021, Ronald L. Numbers ·, Early Creationist Journals:

     When primary time is measured from the Earth it reaches bacck into astronomical and chemical history many millions or billions of years: and even then we are not certain that we have measured all of the time that has been spun off this side of the Primary Creation.

   • 2021, Paul Lettinck, Aristotle's Physics and its Reception in the Arabic World, page 460:

     The expression "the time in which" a change occurs may refer to the primary time, i.e. the precise time during which the change occurs, or to a time which includes the primary time;

2. Time as directly experienced, as opposed to time as a measured amount, historical time, etc.
   • 1990, Edith Wyschogrod, Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy, page 94:

     But by questioning the nature of primary time, unsuspected aspects of temporality come to the fore. What, Damascius wonders, can primary time be, "if not time's whole presence at once." He notices that "at different moments the present is different, although time per se is one and continuous.

   • 2004, David S. Martin, Advances in Cognition, Education, and Deafness, page 202:

     Observing mistakes in understanding of primary time leads to the conclusion that the deaf child has little sense of historical time or that the created concepts are inadequate.

3. (military, aviation) The amount of time in which a pilot is actively controlling the aircraft, excluding time flown while instructing and evaluating.