adj.
      - of chief importance; principal.
 - earliest in time or order. 
▸
(Primary)
 Geology  former term for Palaeozoic.
 - not caused by or based on anything else.
 - chiefly Brit. relating to or denoting education for children between the ages of about five and eleven.
 - of or denoting the input side of a transformer or other inductive device.
 - Chemistry  (of an organic compound) having its functional group on a carbon atom bonded to no more than one other carbon atom. 
▸derived from ammonia by replacement of one hydrogen atom by an organic group.
 
n.
 (pl. primaries)
  - (in the US) a preliminary election to appoint delegates to a party conference or to select the candidates for a principal, especially presidential, election.
 - Astronomy  the body orbited by a smaller body.
 
 
  Etymology
  ME: from L. primarius, from primus ‘first’.