primordial
/prʌɪˈmɔːdɪəl
/adjective
1Existing at or from the beginning of time; primeval: the primordial oceans...
- Life seems to have originated in the primordial oceans that covered the Earth four billion years ago.
- Her immense wooden sculptures refer to a primitive form of life in primordial worlds.
- The work resembles a sub-human primordial design nesting deep inside creation itself; it seems to come from a place billions of years old, far removed from human consciousness.
Synonyms
ancient, earliest, first, prehistoric, antediluvian, antique, primeval, primitive, primal
rare autochthonous, autochthonic, primigenial
1.1(Especially of a feeling or state) basic and fundamental: the primordial needs of the masses...
- Later, when I began to sing along with the Opera stars, it was my chance to express those blurred, but primordial feelings I had bottled-up inside a thin, nondescript physique.
- Whatever it was, I felt the primordial feeling of tears stinging at my eyes, and my breathing grew sharp and cutting, much colder than before.
- For others, however, those rhythmic beats will stir imaginings of ancient celebrations and primordial feelings that continue to forge a spiritual bond with the land and the changing seasons.
Synonyms
instinctive, primitive, basic, primal, primeval, intuitive, intuitional, involuntary, inborn, innate, inherent, inbred, natural, congenital, hereditary, inherited, in the blood, ingrained
1.2 Biology (Of a cell, part, or tissue) in the earliest stage of development: primordial germ cells...
- Embryonic stem cells are primordial cells with the ability to morph into any type of cell in the body.
- During human fetal development, the primordial germ cells migrate to and are incorporated within the developing ovary and are termed oogonia.
- Stem cells extracted from human embryos are promising because they are primordial cells yet to be assigned a specific function, making them useful in the treatment of a wide variety of maladies.
Derivatives
primordiality
- In world culture, national identities are more commonly viewed as historical constructions and the location of primordiality is in ethnic-cultural groups, especially when they are minorities.
- This emphasis on the primordiality of particular practices is, I think, one of the ways that Hauerwas has had the most marked influence on other thinkers.
primordially
- Certain sweet tastes, like that first chocolate chip cookie you have, will affect you almost primordially; a little bell goes off and that taste will be with you forever.
- More likely, the food is just so primordially delicious that you don't care what anyone else thinks.
- On a hot Sunday hike through primordially dense and verdant Florida woods, 6-year-old Nicholas stopped mid - trail, lifted his hand with authority, and commanded, ‘Wait.’
Origin
Late Middle English: from late Latin primordialis 'first of all', from primordius 'original' (see primordium).