PRIMER • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Primer

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/prˈaɪmər/ Listen

noun

Primer n. One who, or that which, primes; specifically, An instrument or device for priming; esp., a cap, tube, or water containing percussion powder or other compound for igniting a charge of gunpowder.

Primer n.

Originally, a small prayer book for church service, containing the little office of the Virgin Mary; also, a work of elementary religious instruction. "The primer, or office of the Blessed Virgin."

A small elementary book for teaching children to read; a reading or spelling book for a beginner. "As he sat in the school at his prymer."

(Print.) A kind of type, of which there are two species; one, called long primer, intermediate in size between bourgeois and small pica (see Long primer); the other, called great primer, larger than pica. Note: Great primer type.

adjective

Primer adj. First; original; primary. (Obs.) "The primer English kings."

Primer fine (O. Eng. Law), a fine due to the king on the writ or commencement of a suit by fine.

Primer seizin (Feudal Law), the right of the king, when a tenant in capite died seized of a knight's fee, to receive of the heir, if of full age, one year's profits of the land if in possession, and half a year's profits if the land was in reversion expectant on an estate for life; now abolished.

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Etymology of 'Primer'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Primer" Quotes from Famous Books

... spoke. The delicate finger of the gypsy moved over the lines of the palm like that of a little school-girl over the pages of a primer. They did not realize how dangerous was that proximity, nor how fatal that touch. Through those two poles of Nature's most powerful battery, the magnetic and mysterious current ...

— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... connected with a visit to a school. I was getting proud of my ability to spell small words. A primer-maker had attempted to help the association of letters with objects by placing them in juxtaposition, but through a mistake he led me to my undoing. I knew my letters and I knew some things. I plainly distinguished the letters P-A-N. Against them I was puzzled by a picture of a spoon, and with ...

— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... country education, from the primer to the university, is absolutely free. The state does the whole business and in my state they print the school books, and more than that they give a man a professional education, too, without tuition fees—if he wants to become a lawyer ...

— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... he repeated again and again, unhesitatingly; but A he would not, and persisted in declaring that he could not say. He was severely whipped, but still persisted. It now became a contest of wills. He was whipped again and again and again. In the intervals between the whippings the primer was presented to him, and he was told that he would be whipped again if he did not mind his mother and say A. I forget how many times he was whipped; but it was almost too many times to be believed. The fight was a terrible one. At last, in a paroxysm of his crying under the blows, the mother thought ...

— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... four periods may we divide Shakespeare's work? (See Dowden's A Primer of Shakespeare, or Stopford Brooke's Primer of ...

— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely

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