Word.ws English Dictionary

rudiment

Syllables: ru·di·ment/ˈɹuːdɪmənt/

rudiment noun: a fundamental principle or skill, especially in a field of learning.

Noun

rudiment (plural rudiments)

  1. (in plural, often) A fundamental principle or skill, especially in a field of learning.
    • We'll be learning the rudiments of thermodynamics next week.
    • This boy is forest-born, / And hath been tutored in the rudiments / Of many desperate studies.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    Synonyms:
    basics, fundamentals
  2. (in plural, often) A form that lacks full or complex development.
    • I have the rudiments of an escape plan.
    • But I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit / Those rudiments, and see before thine eyes / The monarchies of the earth.1671, John Milton, “(please specify the page)”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC
  3. A body part that no longer has a function
  4. In percussion, one of a selection of basic drum patterns learned as an exercise.
    • Show me your rudiments.2014, Damien Chazelle, Whiplash, spoken by Terence Fletcher (J. K. Simmons)

Verb

rudiment (third-person singular simple present rudiments, present participle rudimenting, simple past and past participle rudimented)

  1. (transitive) To ground; to settle in first principles.

rudiment meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

rudiment in Tamil

அடிப்படைக் கூறு, அடிப்படைக் கொள்கை, மூலக்கருக் கூறு, மூலக்கூறு, வளர்ச்சியிலி

rudiment in Urdu

اصل, ابتدا, پہلا اصول

rudiment in Bengali

মৌলিক, প্রাথমিক বিষয়

rudiment in Malayalam

അടിസ്ഥാനം, മൗലികതത്ത്വം, അവികസിതരൂപം
More languagesFewer languages
rudiment in Kannada
ಮೊದಲ ಹಂತ, ಮೊದಲ ತೋರ‍್ಕೆ
rudiment in Persian
مبادی mabâdi

Examples of rudiment in a sentence

  • The very emphasis on reading readiness and on the methods employed to teach children the rudiments of reading has meant that the other, the higher, levels of reading have tended to be slighted.1972, Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 26:
  • The single leaf is the rudiment of beauty in landscape.a. 1865, Isaac Taylor, Ornamentation of Nature:
  • Despite the assassination of Stolypin in 1911, for some years Russia was clearly moving in the direction of a bourgeois state with the rudiments of a constitutional monarchy.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon...

All 10 example sentences with rudiment

Synonyms of rudiment

Forms of rudiment

Noun
pluralrudiments
Verb
third-person singular presentrudiments
present participlerudimenting
past participlerudimented
pastrudimented

Origin of rudiment

From Old French rudiment, from Latin rudimentum (“a first attempt, a beginning”), plural rudimenta (“the elements”), from rudis (“rude”); see rude. By surface analysis, rude + -i- + -ment.

Words formed from rudiment

Questions about rudiment

What does rudiment mean?
Rudiment means a fundamental principle or skill, especially in a field of learning.
What is rudiment in Tamil?
Rudiment in Tamil is அடிப்படைக் கூறு, அடிப்படைக் கொள்கை, மூலக்கருக் கூறு. See Rudiment meaning in Tamil.
How do you use rudiment in a sentence?
The very emphasis on reading readiness and on the methods employed to teach children the rudiments of reading has meant that the other, the higher, levels of reading have tended to be slighted.
What part of speech is rudiment?
Rudiment can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce rudiment?
Rudiment is pronounced /ˈɹuːdɪmənt/.
What is the plural of rudiment?
The plural of rudiment is rudiments.

Words near rudiment in the dictionary

  1. Rudick
  2. Rudicks
  3. rudie
  4. rudies
  5. Rudiger syndrome
  6. rudiment
  7. rudimental
  8. rudimentally
  9. rudimentaries
  10. rudimentarily
  11. rudimentariness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rudiment (page history and authors); rudiment (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rudiment (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rudiment (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rudiment (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rudiment (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: en-us-rudiment.ogg.

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