primitive

primi·tive (prim′i tiv)

adjective

of or existing in the beginning or the earliest times or ages; ancient; original
1. characteristic or imitative of the earliest ages
2. crude, simple, rough, uncivilized, etc.
not derivative; primary; basic
Anthrop. of or having to do with a preliterate, generally isolated, culture with a relatively low level of technology
Biol.
1. designating or of an organism, organ, etc. at the starting point of its evolutionary development or very little evolved from early ancestral types
2. primordial (sense )

Etymology: ME primitif < MFr < L primitivus < primus, first: see prime

noun

a primitive person or thing
1. an artist or a work of art of an early, esp. preliterate, culture
2. an artist or a work of art that shows ingenuousness and lack of formal training
Algebra, Geom. a form from which another is derived
Gram. the form from which a certain word or other form has been derived; root; base

prim′i·tively adverb prim′i·tive·ness noun

modif.

Converse of object

draw: Postscript is a Turing-complete reverse polish programming language with drawing primitives based on Bezier curves.
add: We're in the process of adding some vector primitives to address the needs of CAD users, as well.

Adjective modifier

geometric: Abstract The extraction of geometric primitives from images is a fundamental task in computer vision.
graphic: These store the image as a set of graphic primitives; shapes such as lines, ellipses, rectangles and polygons.
basic: The basic primitives, the locator functions and the graph ADT definition itself do allow for any number of linked nodes.
simple: TRY is one pass through the main loop, being defined in terms of simpler primitives to perform the required task.

Modifies a noun

Methodist: The Primitive Methodists reached out to the poorest people, who had been written off by the rest of society.
Methodism: In Herefordshire, at the time of the census, Primitive Methodism was by far the most popular form of all the dissenting religions.
accumulation: Nor is the " primitive accumulation of capital " in Russia without parallel in recent years in the West itself.
streak: It draws attention to the development of the primitive streak.
communism: Primitive communism is negated by the exploitation of man by man.
reflex: These primitive reflexes should slowly be inhibited during the first year of life.

Modifying Another Word

rather: In particular they decide that the rather primitive standard fuel injection system was holding the car back.
relatively: As a relatively primitive system in comparison with modern personal computers and with the Internet, its limitations have become all too apparent.
fairly: The graphical interface, which appears in any case to be fairly primitive, doesn't actually seem to work on current Windows systems.
somewhat: This traditional method is efficient, if somewhat primitive.
extremely: What's available now via WAP phones is extremely primitive, much of it more interesting for its novelty value than its real use.
very: Conditions were very primitive, there was no running water, gas or mains electric.

Noun used with modifier

output: The output primitives are sent to the active workstation and stored in the segment.

Used with adjective complement

seem: Some of the features seem primitive, while others seem advanced, so an eighth or ninth century date might be appropriate.

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