Word.ws English Dictionary

primarily

/ˈpɹaɪ.mə.ɹə.li/US/pɹaɪˈmɛɹ.əli/

primarily adverb: of a primary or central nature, first and foremost.

Adverb

primarily (not comparable)

  1. (focus) Of a primary or central nature, first and foremost.
    • The idea of fitting a crane to an engine for shunting duties, primarily in works yards, appears to have originated with the North London Railway engine in 1872.1951 October, H. C. Casserley, “Crane Engines”, in Railway Magazine, page 660
    • These spectacles aren't calls for a Hobbesian war of all against all by some insurgent movement that, however dangerous, would have First Amendment protection. They're driven primarily by institutions that we as sovereign citizens created to serve our purposes.2013 January 25, Jim Sleeper, Daniel J. H. Greenwood, “To Stop Gun Violence, We Need to Remember We Can Regulate Corporate Speech and Advertising”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 08...

primarily meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam

primarily in Hindi

primarily, chiefly
मुख्यतः mukhyataḥ

primarily in Tamil

அடிப்படையாக, முதல் நிலையான

primarily in Bengali

প্রাথমিকভাবে, প্রথমত

primarily in Malayalam

firstly, first (and foremost), essentially
പ്രാഥമികമായി, മുഖ്യമായി, പ്രഥമമായി, ഇദംപ്രഥമമായി, സർവ്വപ്രധാനമായി, ആദ്യമായി
chiefly, mostly, for the most part
പ്രായേണ, പൊതുവേ, പതിവായി, മിക്കവാറും, പ്രത്യേകം, പ്രത്യേകിച്ച്
More languagesFewer languages
primarily in Kannada
ಪ್ರಾಥಮಿಕವಾಗಿ

Examples of primarily in a sentence

  • But now a study has shown that most cancers are primarily caused by bad luck rather than poor lifestyle choices or defective DNA.2015 January 1, Sarah Knapton, “Most cancers are caused by bad luck not genes or lifestyle, say scientists”, in The Telegraph, archived...
  • Zika virus disease is caused by a virus transmitted primarily by Aedes mosquitoes, which bite during the day.2018 July 20, “Zika virus”, in World Health Organization, archived from the original on 17 Apr 2019:
  • Some Gold Cups are won primarily with class, others with stamina.2019 March 15, Keith Melrose, “Our leading tipsters give their fancy for the Cheltenham Gold Cup”, in The Racing Post, archived from the...

All 40 example sentences with primarily

Synonyms of primarily

Origin of primarily

From primary + -ly.

Questions about primarily

What does primarily mean?
Primarily means of a primary or central nature, first and foremost.
What is primarily in Hindi?
Primarily in Hindi is मुख्यतः (mukhyataḥ). See Primarily meaning in Hindi.
How do you use primarily in a sentence?
But now a study has shown that most cancers are primarily caused by bad luck rather than poor lifestyle choices or defective DNA.
What part of speech is primarily?
Primarily is an adverb.
How do you pronounce primarily?
Primarily is pronounced /ˈpɹaɪ.mə.ɹə.li/ (UK).

Words near primarily in the dictionary

  1. primaperone
  2. primaquine
  3. primarch
  4. primaried
  5. primaries
  6. primarily
  7. primariness
  8. primarosol
  9. primarosols
  10. primary
  11. primary accent

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: primarily (page history and authors); मुख्यतः (Hindi) (page history and authors); primarily (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); primarily (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); primarily (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); primarily (Kannada, 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-primarily2.wav.

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