primordial

adjective pri·mor·di·al \ prī-ˈmȯr-dē-əl \

Updated on: 10 Apr 2018

Definition of primordial

1 a : first created or developed : primeval 1

b : existing in or persisting from the beginning (as of a solar system or universe)

a primordial gas cloud

c : earliest formed in the growth of an individual or organ : primitive

primordial cells

2 : fundamental, primary

primordial human joys
—Sir Winston Churchill

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primordially

play \prī-ˈmȯr-dē-ə-lē\ adverb

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Examples of primordial in a Sentence

all life on Earth supposedly came from a primordial ooze in existence many millions of years ago

Recent Examples of primordial from the Web

Observations of galaxies and of the Universe’s primordial radiation imply that the vast majority of matter is of a type that is invisible and interacts almost exclusively through gravity.

— davide castelvecchi, Scientific American, "Beguiling Dark-Matter Signal Persists 20 Years on," 2 Apr. 2018
His paintings elicit a primordial desire for the organic orderliness of left-right, mirror-image balance.

— david pagel, latimes.com, "For Tony Larson, building blocks of color add up to a much bigger picture," 27 Mar. 2018
Toby Divine, a 42-year-old video editor in LA, has been into smart home technology since 2001, when things were positively primordial by today’s standards.

— libby copeland, Curbed, "Home smart home," 14 Mar. 2018
In fact, nearly everything other than particles that have been proposed to account for dark matter's gravitational effects, such as primordial black holes, should be heating the gas up.

— john timmer, Ars Technica, "Simple telescope picks up hint of the Universe’s first stars, dark matter," 28 Feb. 2018
Akwaeke Emezi's powerful and irresistibly unsettling debut follows a girl born with one foot in Nigeria and one in a primordial realm of gods and demons.

— david wright, The Seattle Times, "‘Freshwater’: a bewitching tale of gods and a girl coming of age," 20 Feb. 2018
The film — set at the exact moment the Stone and Bronze Ages collide — milks humor out of primordial playfulness and primitive puns.

— rick bentley, idahostatesman, "Nick Park’s ‘Early Man’ wonderfully full of dated material," 16 Feb. 2018
This primordial atmosphere created by a magma ocean would have been the hottest and wettest Mars ever was.

— david grossman, Popular Mechanics, "New Study Suggests Steam Atmosphere Formed Clay on Mars, Not Surface Water," 7 Dec. 2017
So much for the image of the rugged American frontiersman, gun in hand, experiencing his primordial oneness with the wilderness, so beloved by gun rights advocates.

— patrick blanchfield, New Republic, "The Brutal Origins of Gun Rights," 11 Dec. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'primordial.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

The history of "primordial" began when the Latin words primus (meaning "first") and "ordiri" (meaning "to begin") came together to form "primordium," the Latin word for "origin." When it entered English in the 14th century, "primordial" was used in the general sense "primeval." Early on, there were hints that "primordial" would lend itself well to discussions of the earth's origins. Take, for instance, this passage from a 1398 translation of an encyclopedia called On the Properties of Things: "The virtu of God made primordial mater, in the whiche as it were in massy thinge the foure elementis were . . . nought distinguishd." Nowadays, primordial matter is often referred to in evolutionary theory as "primordial soup," a mixture of organic molecules from which life on earth originated.