primitive
adj 1: belonging to an early stage of technical development;
characterized by simplicity and (often) crudeness;
"the crude weapons and rude agricultural implements of
early man"; "primitive movies of the 1890s";
"primitive living conditions in the Appalachian
mountains" [syn: {crude}, {rude}]
2: being or resembling a force of nature; "elemental violence";
"primitive passions" [syn: {elemental}]
3: little evolved from or characteristic of an earlier
ancestral type; "archaic forms of life"; "primitive
mammals"; "the okapi is a short-necked primitive cousin of
the giraffe" [syn: {archaic}]
4: not derived from or reducible to something else; basic; "a
primary instinct"; "seeks excellence at its primitive
source--nature"- John Dewey [syn: {primary}]
5: (linguistics) serving as the basis for derived or inflected
forms; "`pick' is the primitive word from which `picket'
is derived" [ant: {derivative}]
6: (anthropology; of societies) preliterate or tribal or
nonindustrial; "primitive societies"
7: (fine arts) of or created by one without formal training;
simple or naive in style; "primitive art such as that by
Grandma Moses is often colorful and striking"
8: (mathematics) being an algebraic or geometric expression
from which another expression is derived
n : a person who belongs to early stage of civilization [syn: {primitive
person}]