† imprimitiveadj.
/ɪmˈprɪmɪtɪv/ Obsolete. rare.
1. Not primitive; not following primitive usage or tradition.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > sect > Christianity > person > [adjective] > in earliest times > not
imprimitivea1726
a1726 W. Reeves 14 Serm. (1729) 259 That scandalous contempt and ridicule which some imprimitive Divines of late have put upon it.
2. Mathematics. Denoting a group whose elements may be divided into sets having an equal number of distinct elements, so that every substitution either changes one set into another or interchanges the elements of a set among themselves.
ΚΠ
1888 J. M. Page in Amer. Jrnl. Math. 10 298 Now a group X1f...Xrf in the plane is said to be imprimitive when it leaves a family of curves.
1889 O. Bolza in Amer. Jrnl. Math. 11 210 If they do form a group Q, this group will be imprimitive with the two systems of imprimitivity x1, x2...xr and y1, y2...yr.
1902 Encycl. Brit. XXIX. 121/1 If O, O´, O´´,..is a set of objects in respect of which a group G is transitive, it may be possible to divide the set into a number of subsets, no two of which contain a common object, such that every operation of the group either interchanges the objects of a subset among themselves, or changes them all into the objects of some other subset. When this is the case the group is called imprimitive in respect of the set; otherwise the group is called primitive.
Derivatives
imprimitivity n.
ΚΠ
1889 O. Bolza in Amer. Jrnl. Math. 11 210 If they do form a group Q, this group will be imprimitive with the two systems of imprimitivity x1, x2...xr and y1, y2...yr.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1899; most recently modified version published online June 2018).
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adj.a1726