primaries

Noun

primary (plural primaries)

1. A primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party, or the first round of a two-round election.
   • In recent primaries, for example, nearly 4% of absentees were rejected in Philadelphia; 8% in Kentucky; and 20% in parts of New York City.2020 September 14, Richard H. Pildes, “The three words that can avert an election nightmare”, in CNN
2. The first year of grade school.
3. A base or fundamental component; something that is irreducible.
4. The most massive component of a gravitationally bound system, such as a planet in relation to its satellites.
5. A primary school.
   • Excellence in Cities offers a further development of this approach, whereby secondary schools operate with small clusters of primaries as mini-EAZs.2001, David Woods, Martyn Cribb, Effective LEAs and school improvement
6. Any flight feather attached to the manus (hand) of a bird.
   • `Good Lord, look at that swiftlet, it's got two primaries missing from its left wing!'2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 115

See all 19 meanings of primary