elemental

Syllables: el·e·men·tal/(ˌ)ɛləˈmɛntəl/

elemental adjective: of, relating to, or being an element (as opposed to a compound).

Adjective

elemental (not comparable)

Of, relating to, or being an element (as opposed to a compound).
Basic, fundamental or elementary.
- Those who have escaped the dark and terrible aspects of life will find my brutality, my flash of rage in our final tragedy, easy enough to blame; for they know what is wrong as well as any, but not what is possible to tortured men. But those who have been under the shadow, who have gone down at...1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 219
- The pervasive emptiness and stultifying summer heat were only minor deterrents when compared with the more elemental consideration that all the banking and commercial institutions were based elsewhere, chiefly in Philadelphia and New York.2000, Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers, New York: Vintage Books, pages 79–80
Of the ancient supposed elements of earth, air, fire and water.
- Seth is the embodiment of mother-right, warfare, terror, human sacrifice; he is an elemental deity who deals in the fundamental reality of blood.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 216
(broadly) Of, or relating to a force of nature, especially to severe atmospheric conditions.
(figuratively) Comparable to a force of nature; sudden and unpredictable.
- Lenin, of course, was not a 'Blanquist' in the sense of envisaging a coup d'état which a small group of conspirators, properly prepared, could carry out at any moment. He realized that revolutions were elemental occurrences that could not be planned or produced at will.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in...

Noun

elemental (plural elementals)

A creature (usually a spirit) that is attuned with, or composed of, one of the classical elements: air, earth, fire and water or variations of them like ice, lightning, etc. They sometimes have unique proper names and sometimes are referred to as Air, Earth, Fire, or Water.
- Incidentally, such beings may be said to have an existence of a sort upon the lower astral plane; they are elementals created by man's evil desires and unclean thoughts.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 115
- This time they got into print, all right. But the much-handled stories, written up with that blend of cautiously defensive frivolity which the press habitually employed to cover themselves in matters regarding sea-serpents, elementals, thought transference, and other irregular phenomena, prevented...1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 39

elemental meaning in Urdu, Telugu, Malayalam and Punjabi

elemental in Urdu

عنصری

elemental in Telugu

ఎలిమెంటల్

elemental in Malayalam

മൂലദ്രവ്യമായ, ആദിമരൂപത്തിലുള്ള, പ്രാഥമികമായ, പ്രകൃതിശക്തികളെ സംബന്ധിക്കുന്ന

elemental in Punjabi

ਤੱਤਾਤਮਕ

More languagesFewer languages

elemental in Malay: unsur, keunsuran, unsuri, elemen

Examples of elemental in a sentence

Plasmarons have been observed in graphene and in elemental bismuth.
I have come to realize that the busman's holiday is an elemental part of my life.
It doesn't exist, it's never landed, it is no matter, it's not on the elemental chart.

All 28 example sentences with elemental

Forms of elemental

plural	elementals

Origin of elemental

From Middle English elementall, from Medieval Latin elementālis; compare Old French elementel. By surface analysis, element + -al.

Words formed from elemental

Words that rhyme with elemental

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about elemental

What does elemental mean?: Elemental means of, relating to, or being an element (as opposed to a compound).
What is elemental in Urdu?: Elemental in Urdu is عنصری. See Elemental meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is elemental?: Elemental can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce elemental?: Elemental is pronounced /(ˌ)ɛləˈmɛntəl/.

Words near elemental in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: elemental (page history and authors); elemental (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); elemental (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); elemental (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); elemental (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-elemental.wav.

Cite this entry: “elemental.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/elemental. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.