Primitive - Definition

adj 1: 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" [syn: crude,
primitive, rude]
2: 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"
[syn: archaic, primitive]
3: used of preliterate or tribal or nonindustrial societies;
"primitive societies"
4: 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" [syn: primitive, naive]
n 1: a person who belongs to an early stage of civilization
[syn: primitive, primitive person]
2: a mathematical expression from which another expression is
derived
3: a word serving as the basis for inflected or derived forms;
"`pick' is the primitive from which `picket' is derived"