of or belonging to the first or beginning; original
2.
characteristic of an early state, esp in being crude or uncivilized
a primitive dwelling
3. anthropology
denoting or relating to a preliterate and nonindustrial social system
4. biology
a.
of, relating to, or resembling an early stage in the evolutionary development of a particular group of organisms
primitive amphibians
b. another word for primordial (sense 3)
5.
showing the characteristics of primitive painters; untrained, childlike, or naive
6. geology
pertaining to magmas that have experienced only small degrees of fractional crystallization or crystal contamination
7. obsolete
of, relating to, or denoting rocks formed in or before the Palaeozoic era
8. obsolete
denoting a word from which another word is derived, as for example hope, from which hopeless is derived
9. Protestant theology
of, relating to, or associated with a minority group that breaks away from a sect, denomination, or Church in order to return to what is regarded as the original simplicity of the Gospels
noun
10.
a primitive person or thing
11.
a.
an artist whose work does not conform to traditional, academic, or avant-garde standards of Western painting, such as a painter from an African or Oceanic civilization
b.
a painter of the pre-Renaissance era in European painting
c.
a painter of any era whose work appears childlike or untrained
Also called (for senses 11a, 11c): naive
12.
a work by such an artist
13.
a word or concept from which another word or concept is derived
14. mathematics
a curve, function, or other form from which another is derived
Derived forms
primitively (ˈprimitively)
adverb
primitiveness (ˈprimitiveness)
noun
Word origin
C14: from Latin prīmitīvus earliest of its kind, primitive, from prīmus first
Examples of 'primitivity' in a sentence
primitivity
The primitivity property implies chaotic behavior, while failure to have the primitivity property reflects periodic behavior.
Abraham Boyarsky, Pawel Góra 2002, 'A dynamic system interpretation of irreducible complexity', Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Societyhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10260220290013480. Retrieved from DOAJ CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)