Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use elementary in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Elementary means relating to the basic, essential or fundamental part of something. Example: “The fermions treated by the Standard Model are the (composite) baryons and the (elementary) leptons and quarks.”

Examples of elementary by meaning

adjectiveFundamental: serving as a building block for more complicated structures or processes.

  • It is clear, therefore, that idealism contradicts the most elementary scientific knowledge and is contrary to all progress, whether social or intellectual.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon...
  • The physics of elementary particles in the 20th century was distinguished by the observation of particles whose existence had been predicted by theorists sometimes decades earlier.2012 March, Jeremy Bernstein, “A Palette of Particles”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 146

nounA supernatural being associated with the elements.

  • The demon (or elementary) of the South-West wind was particularly dreaded, as being the gini of fever and madness.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 45

More sentences with elementary

  • The fermions treated by the Standard Model are the (composite) baryons and the (elementary) leptons and quarks.From the entry fermion
  • The piercing noise of the children could be heard two blocks from the elementary school.From the entry piercing
  • The original Greek alphabet of sixteen letters was called kyriological, because it represented the pure elementary sounds.From the entry kyriological
  • It wasn't until they tried to subtract 3 from 1 that the elementary school students realized they needed signed numbers.From the entry signed
  • They were lifelong friends; they met in elementary school and ended their lives in the same rest home.From the entry lifelong
  • Abraham Lincoln is often overglorified in elementary school classrooms.From the entry overglorify
  • Latchkey is an elementary school-age childcare program that provides care and education for children of working parents.2025, “Archived copy”, in Columbus City Schools, archived from the original on 10 Sep 2025. From the entry latchkey
  • Subjects with elementary or higher education level had higher intensity of avoidance-oriented strategies in the hemodialyzed group.2015 June 22, Zbigniew Nowak, Zofia Wańkowicz, Krzysztof Laudanski, “Denial Defense Mechanism in Dialyzed Patients”, in Medical Science…. From the entry hemodialyzed
  • Simply put, practicing good cyberhygiene should be taught in elementary schools from the age of 6 onwards.2015, V.S. Subrahmanian, Michael Ovelgonne, Tudor Dumitras, B. Aditya Prakash, The Global Cyber-Vulnerability Report. From the entry cyberhygiene
  • A tame automorphism is a product of elementary automorphisms, and a non-tame automorphism is called wild.2014, Alexei Belov, Leonid Bokut, Louis Rowen, Jie-Tai Yu, “The Jacobian Conjecture, Together with Specht and Burnside-Type Problems”, in…. From the entry automorphism
  • As a child in elementary school, I was very awkward and paranoid, especially in that particular classroom.2013, “Dream #39”, in Robert G. Kunzendorf, James W. Veatch, Envisioning the Dream through Art and Science (with 100 Digitally Imaged…. From the entry a cigar is just a cigar
  • In Section 4.1 we introduce the elementary symplectic matrices which are used by the structured algorithms.2012, Dario A. Bini, Bruno Iannazzo, Beatrice Meini, Numerical Solution of Algebraic Riccati Equations, Society for Industrial and Applied…. From the entry symplectic matrix
  • Coaches begin identifying prospects during regular visits to local elementary schools.2008 August 3, Jim Yardley, “The State Requests That Citizen Liu Win Gold”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the…. From the entry Suqian
  • He broke into an empty elementary school where he learned that spelling books cause belly aches.2005, Monty Harper, “The Great Green Squishy Mean Bibliovore”, in The Great Green Squishy Mean Concert CD, Stillwater, Okla.: Monty Harper…. From the entry bibliovore
  • When they say elementary particles such as quarks have charm and strangeness, it's a joke, Joyce.2005, Damien Broderick, Ferocious Minds: Polymathy and the New Enlightenment, Wildside Press LLC, →ISBN, page 128. From the entry it's a joke, Joyce
  • This chapter is devoted to the elementary theory of the modular automorphism groups.2002, Masamichi Takesaki, Theory of Operator Algebras II, Springer, page 91. From the entry automorphism group
  • You can tell because of their cantankerosity, which is higher than that of any other elementary particle.1998 May 8, Dgranoct12, “Could Electrons be alive?”, in alt.prophecies.nostradamus (Usenet). From the entry cantankerosity
  • The Jackson integral enjoys several elementary properties of the usual integral.1993, D. B. Fuks, Unconventional Lie Algebras, page 52. From the entry Jackson integral
  • The last section introduces elementary algebraic graph theory which is then applied to electrical networks.1979, Béla Bollobás, Graph Theory: An Introductory Course, Springer, page 26. From the entry algebraic graph theory
  • For a Kiddie-land area, ride management looks for elementary education or social work majors.1977, IAAPA, Proceedings of the 60th IAAPA Convention, page 79. From the entry kiddie land
  • All of these different methods of teaching elementary reading were successful for some pupils, unsuccessful for others.1972, Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 23. From the entry pupil
  • Many courses are given to aspiring scientists as introductory statistics or biometrics introducing elementary statistical methodology.1971 April 30, “Research by Experiment”, in Nature, volume 230, number 5296, →DOI, page 602. From the entry statisticize
  • Incubus (synonyms, Pnigalion, ephialtes, epibole ) .— It is an elementary form of epilepsy .1936, James Richard Whitwell, Historical Notes on Psychiatry, page 170. From the entry pnigalion
  • "Elementary, my dear Watson," as Sherlock Holmes was wont to say.1909 August 24, “Signaling to Mars. An elementary problem, says Professor [Edward Charles] Pickering, of Harvard.”, in The Times Dispatch…. From the entry elementary, my dear Watson
  • Countless proposals flooded in, sent by sources as august as the World Academy of Sciences and as humble as elementary schools.2016, Liu Cixin, translated by Ken Liu, Death's End, Tor, translation of 死神永生, →ISBN, page 280. From the entry august
  • Along the way we provide elementary proofs of the shellability of the arc complex of the n-gon and the cylinder.2015, Jon Wilson, “Shellability and Sphericity of the quasi-arc complex of the Möbius strip”, in arXiv. From the entry shellability
  • Elementary schools don’t have assistant principals anymore.2014 April 22, Josh Nathan-Kazis, “Is Hasidic Board To Blame for Gutting Public Schools in N.Y. Town?”, in The Forward, archived from the…. From the entry Ramapo
  • Fig. 7.10 An irregular-shaped region with a "bottle-neck"; two regions R1 and R2 are mismerged into one elementary region.2013, Makoto Nagao, Takashi Matsuyama, A Structural Analysis of Complex Aerial Photographs, page 162. From the entry mismerge
  • The elementary school building, Home Economics building, and Agri building, were across the street from the high school building.2012, Bill Laird, The Life of a Cotton Picking Coaching Preacher, page 100. From the entry agri
  • Neo has been hacking since he was in elementary school.2012, Wayne M. Smith, “The Wraith of Frank—Cyber War Style”, in The Sand Castle, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, pages 99–100. From the entry ones and zeroes
  • While sensations are the most elementary psychophysiological processes, perceptions arise when the new sensations ecphorize traces of similar former sensations.2008, Conditioning behavior and psychiatry, page 55. From the entry ecphorize
  • Is it the same way like computing for elementary?2007 August 28, Bob, “Lambda value of (outer-)totalistic code”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet). From the entry outer totalistic
  • Elementary and junior and senior high school students by the thousands filled the cheap seats and not only for the game.2006, William Teten, Very Truly, Tudey: An Austin Anthology, Old Austin Press, →ISBN, page 57. From the entry knothole section
  • You, with all your undumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase; perhaps you wouldn't even feel it.1996, Vita Sackville-West, edited by Peter Washington, Love Letters, Everyman's Library, →ISBN, page 66. From the entry undumb
  • You won't find it in the California elementary science textbooks.1988, Thomas F. Glick, The Comparative Reception of Darwinism, →ISBN, page 479. From the entry backhanded
  • If I can't even swing elementary lunchmaking my career in politics may just grind to a halt here and now.1988 December 2, Cecil Adams, “The Straight Dope”, in Chicago Reader, archived from the original on 05 Mar 2016. From the entry lunchmaking
  • The following three statements will provide an elementary example of what is meant by range: He's 24 years old (positive).1977, Jan Ate van Ek, L. G. Alexander, The Threshold Level for Modern Language Learning in Schools (page 159). From the entry unpositive

Meaning of elementary

  1. adjective Relating to the basic, essential or fundamental part of something.
  2. adjective Very simple.
  3. adjective Relating to an elementary school.

Full definition of elementary

Questions about elementary in a sentence

How do you use elementary in a sentence?
Elementary is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “The fermions treated by the Standard Model are the (composite) baryons and the (elementary) leptons and quarks.”
What is a short sentence with elementary?
“Elementary schools don’t have assistant principals anymore.”
What does elementary mean?
Elementary means relating to the basic, essential or fundamental part of something.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: elementary (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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