adj.
- relating to or denoting the earliest times in history or stages in evolution or development.
▸of or denoting a preliterate, non-industrial society of simple organization.
▸Biology undeveloped; rudimentary.
- offering an extremely basic level of comfort, convenience, or efficiency.
- (of behaviour or emotion) instinctive and unreasoning.
- of or denoting a deliberately simple and direct artistic style.
n.
- a person belonging to a primitive society.
- a pre-Renaissance painter, or one employing a primitive style.
- technical a word, expression, etc. from which others are derived.
▸Computing any of a set of basic geometric shapes generated in computer graphics.
Derivative
- primitively adv.
- primitiveness n.
Etymology
ME: from OFr. primitif, -ive, from L. primitivus ‘first of its kind’, from primus ‘first’.