Word.ws English Dictionary

primates

/ˈpɹaɪmeɪts/

primates is the plural of primate.

Meaning of primate

Noun (1)

primate (plural primates)

  1. A mammal of the order Primates, comprising of apes (including humans), monkeys, lemurs, tarsiers, lorisids, and galagos.
    • Primates range from lemurs to gorillas.
  2. (informal) An anthropoid; ape including human.

Noun (2)

primate (plural primates)

  1. In the Catholic Church, a rare title conferred to or claimed by the sees of certain archbishops, or the highest-ranking bishop of a present or historical, usually political circumscription.
    • The Archbishop of Quebec is the primate of Canada.
  2. In the Orthodox Church, the presiding bishop of an ecclesiastical jurisdiction or region. Usually, the expression primate refers to the first hierarch of an autocephalous or autonomous Orthodox church. Less often, it is used to refer to the ruling bishop of an archdiocese or diocese.
  3. In the Anglican Church, an archbishop, or the highest-ranking bishop of an ecclesiastic province.

Phrases with primates

Questions about primates

What is primates the plural of?
Primates is the plural of primate.
How do you pronounce primates?
Primates is pronounced /ˈpɹaɪmeɪts/.

Words near primates in the dictionary

  1. primatals
  2. primate
  3. primate cities
  4. primate city
  5. primatelike
  6. primates
  7. primateship
  8. primateships
  9. primatial
  10. primatical
  11. primative

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: primates (page history and authors); primate (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-primates.wav.

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