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primitive roots

primitive roots is the plural of primitive root.

Meaning of primitive root

Noun

primitive root (plural primitive roots)

  1. For a given modulus n, a number g such that for every a coprime to n there exists an integer k such that gᵏ ≡ a (mod n); a generator (or primitive element) of the multiplicative group, modulo n, of integers relatively prime to n.
    • There are #92;phi(p-1) incongruent primitive roots of p. The fact that there are so many primitive roots causes no difficulty in the theory of the binomial congruence but has caused considerable confusion in the tabulation of primitive roots.1941, Derrick Henry Lehmer, Guide to Tables in the Theory of Numbers, National Research Council, page 13

Questions about primitive roots

What is primitive roots the plural of?
Primitive roots is the plural of primitive root.

Words near primitive roots in the dictionary

  1. primitive recursion
  2. primitive recursive
  3. primitive reflex
  4. primitive reflexes
  5. primitive root
  6. primitive roots
  7. primitive streak
  8. primitive streaks
  9. primitive type
  10. primitive types
  11. primitive wrapper class

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: primitive roots (page history and authors); primitive root (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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