"primitive" in the noun sense
1. primitive, primitive person
a person who belongs to an early stage of civilization
2. primitive
a mathematical expression from which another expression is derived
3. primitive
a word serving as the basis for inflected or derived forms
"`pick' is the primitive from which `picket' is derived"
"primitive" in the adjective sense
1. crude, primitive, rude
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"
2. archaic, primitive
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"
3. primitive
used of preliterate or tribal or nonindustrial societies
"primitive societies"
4. primitive, naive
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"
Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)
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