Word of the Day

Sunday January 24, 2010

primordial [prie-MOR-dee-uhl]

adjective

Having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state.
Fundamental; essential; primary; original.
Existing at or from the very beginning; as in biology, primordial matter.

In an online blog, the writer and critic Rosemary Sullivan commented: "No poet had a more impeccable sense of timing. Somehow, when P.K. Page broke the syntax of a line - and you heard it best when she read her poems - something cracked in you and opened out to the light... She understood that the rhythm of poetry was profoundly tied to the rhythms of the human brain, touching something archaic, something primordial in us..."

Sandra Martin, "Literary icon's poems were 'daring in scope, meticulous ... and boldly moral'", The Globe and Mail, Jan 16, 2010
Scientists released the photo yesterday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. It's the most complete picture of the early universe so far, showing galaxies with stars that are already hundreds of millions of years old, along with the unmistakable primordial signs of the first cluster of stars.

Associated Press, "Hubble captures earliest image of universe", Boston Globe, Jan 6, 2010
He wrote "thrilling action romances," as his enthusiastic publishers and television directors said, "of ages past, when men were men. Red-blooded heroes responding vigorously to the stirring passions of primordial life!"

Jack Williamson (1908 - 2006) An American Science Fiction writer The Cosmic Express (1930)

Origin of the Word

Primordial; approximately 1300, derives from Late Latin primordialis "first of all, original," from Latin primordium "the beginning," from primus "first."