different between lofty vs primary

English

Etymology

From Middle English lofty, lofti, lofte (“of high rank; noble; ornate”), equivalent to loft +? -y; see loft (“sky, firmament; upper room”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: l?ft?i, IPA^(key): /?l?fti/
• (General American) enPR: lôft?i, IPA^(key): /?l??fti/
• (cot–caught merger, Canada) enPR: l?ft?i, IPA^(key): /?l?fti/
• Rhymes: -?fti, -??fti

Adjective

lofty (comparative loftier, superlative loftiest)

1. high, tall, having great height or stature
   • 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 551:

     When the night was half spent, I rose and walked on, till the day broke in all its beauty and the sun rose over the heads of the lofty hills and athwart the low gravelly plains.

2. idealistic, implying over-optimism

   a lofty goal

   • 2013, Delme Parfitt in Wales Online, Cardiff City 1 - 0 Swansea City: Steven Caulker heads Bluebirds to South Wales derby win (3 November 2013)

     A goal from Steven Caulker, just after the hour mark, was enough to hand victory to Malky Mackay's men, with Swansea falling some way short of the lofty standards they have set previously at this level.

3. extremely proud; arrogant; haughty
   • F. Harrison

     that lofty pity with which prosperous folk are apt to remember their grandfathers

Synonyms

• (having great height or stature): noble, honorable

Antonyms

• (having great height or stature): mean, ignoble
• (idealistic): familiar, vulgar

Related terms

• loft
• aloft

Translations

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin pr?m?rius (“of the first (rank); chief, principal; excellent”), from pr?mus (first; whence the English adjective prime) + -?rius (whence the English suffix -ary); compare the French primaire, primer, and premier.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p?a?m??i/
• (US) enPR: pr??m?r-?, IPA^(key): /?p?a??m??i/ or enPR: pr??m?-r?, IPA^(key): /?p?a?m??i/
• (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /?p??em??i/, /?p??em?i/

Adjective

primary (comparative more primary, superlative most primary)

1. first or earliest in a group or series.
   • 1659, John Pearson, Exposition of the Creed

     the church of Christ, in its primary institution

   • , Book II, Chapter VIII

     These I call original, or primary, qualities of body.

2. main; principal; chief; placed ahead of others.

   Preferred stock has primary claim on dividends, ahead of common stock.

3. (geology) Earliest formed; fundamental.
4. (chemistry) Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some quality or property in the first degree; having undergone the first stage of substitution or replacement.
5. (medicine) Relating to the place where a disorder or disease started to occur.
6. (medicine) Relating to day-to-day care provided by health professionals such as nurses, general practitioners, dentists etc.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• first
• primus inter pares

Noun

primary (plural primaries)

1. A primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party.
2. The first year of grade school.
3. A base or fundamental component; something that is irreducible.
4. The most massive component of a gravitationally bound system, such as a planet in relation to its satellites.
5. A primary school.
   • 2001, David Woods, Martyn Cribb, Effective LEAs and school improvement

     Excellence in Cities offers a further development of this approach, whereby secondary schools operate with small clusters of primaries as mini-EAZs.

6. (ornithology) Any flight feather attached to the manus (hand) of a bird.
7. A primary colour.
   • 2003, Julie A Jacko, Andrew Sears, The human-computer interaction handbook

     By adding and subtracting the three primaries, cyan, yellow, and magenta are produced. These are called subtractive primaries.

8. (military) The first stage of a thermonuclear weapon, which sets off a fission explosion to help trigger a fusion reaction in the weapon's secondary stage.
9. (aviation) A radar return from an aircraft (or other object) produced solely by the reflection of the radar beam from the aircraft's skin, without additional information from the aircraft's transponder.
10. (medicine) Primary site of disease; original location or source of the disease.

11. (electronics) A directly driven inductive coil, as in a transformer or induction motor that is magnetically coupled to a secondary

Translations

References

• primary on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Verb

primary (third-person singular simple present primaries, present participle primarying, simple past and past participle primaried)

1. (US, politics, transitive, intransitive) To challenge (an incumbent sitting politician) for their political party's nomination to run for re-election, through running a challenger campaign in a primary election, especially one that is more ideologically extreme.
2. (US, intransitive, transitive) To take part in a primary election.

Further reading

• primary in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• primary in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.