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prima materia

prima materia noun: the primitive formless base of all matter, which is the starting material required for the magnum opus and the creation of the philosopher's stone.

Noun

prima materia (uncountable)

  1. The primitive formless base of all matter, which is the starting material required for the magnum opus and the creation of the philosopher's stone.
    • The alchemist's initial encounter with the prima materia is characterized by feelings of frustration, bewilderment, disassociation and disintegration.1976, Johannes Fabricius, Alchemy: The Medieval Alchemists and Their Royal Art

Origin of prima materia

From Latin prīma māteria (“first matter”).

Questions about prima materia

What does prima materia mean?
Prima materia means the primitive formless base of all matter, which is the starting material required for the magnum opus and the creation of the philosopher's stone.
What part of speech is prima materia?
Prima materia is a noun.

Words near prima materia in the dictionary

  1. prima donnaish
  2. prima donnas
  3. prima facia
  4. prima faciality
  5. prima facie
  6. prima materia
  7. prima mobilia
  8. prima scriptura
  9. prima-donnaish
  10. primability
  11. primable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prima materia (page history and authors). 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.

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