Primary may refer to:
- Primary (astronomy), the larger of two co-orbiting bodies
- Primary mirror, principal light-gathering surface of a reflecting telescope
- Primary (band), from Australia
- Primary circuit, electrical circuit in a transformer that receives current, as opposed to secondary circuit
- Primary election, an election by which a political party selects and nominates a candidate
- Power line, electric power transmission line fed to or from a transformer
- Primary (film), 1960 documentary
- Primary (LDS Church), children's Sunday School organization
- "Primary" (song), by The Cure
- Primary, the oldest period in the Geologic time scale (obsolete)
- "Primary", a song by Spoon from the album Telephono
- Primaries, remiges (wing feathers) in birds
- Primaries or primary beams, in E. E. Smith's science-fiction series Lensman
- The first stage in a thermonuclear explosive, may also be used alone in a lower-yield nuclear explosive, see nuclear weapon design
Read more about Primary: Mathematics, Gaming
Famous quotes containing the word primary:
“The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)
“It was the feeling of a passenger on an ocean steamer whose mind will not give him rest until he has been in the engine-room and talked with the engineer. She wanted to see with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to touch with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to touch with her own hand the massive machinery of society; to measure with her own mind the capacity of the motive power. She was bent upon getting to the heart of the great American mystery of democracy and government.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“If the accumulated wealth of the past generations is thus tainted,—no matter how much of it is offered to us,—we must begin to consider if it were not the nobler part to renounce it, and to put ourselves in primary relations with the soil and nature, and abstaining from whatever is dishonest and unclean, to take each of us bravely his part, with his own hands, in the manual labor of the world.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)