Adjacent Words

rudimentary definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: being or involving basic facts or principles; "the fundamental laws of the universe"; "a fundamental incomatibility between them"; "these rudimentary truths"; "underlying principles" [syn: fundamental, rudimentary, underlying]
2: being in the earliest stages of development; "rudimentary plans"
3: not fully developed in mature animals; "rudimentary wings" [syn: vestigial, rudimentary]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 1839 1. consisting in first principles ; fundamental <had only a rudimentary formal education — D. J. Boorstin> 2. of a primitive kind <the equipment of these past empire-builders was rudimentary — A. J. Toynbee> 3. very imperfectly developed or represented only by a vestige <the rudimentary tail of a hyrax> • rudimentarily adverb • rudimentariness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 involving basic principles; fundamental. 2 incompletely developed; vestigial. Derivatives: rudimentarily adv. rudimentariness n.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Rudimentary Ru`di*men"ta*ry, a. [Cf. F. rudimentaire.] 1. Of or pertaining to rudiments; consisting in first principles; elementary; initial; as, rudimental essays. 2. (Biol.) Very imperfectly developed; in an early stage of development; embryonic.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. Rudimentary things are very basic or simple and are therefore unsatisfactory. (FORMAL) ...a kind of rudimentary kitchen... ADJ 2. Rudimentary knowledge includes only the simplest and most basic facts. (FORMAL) He had only a rudimentary knowledge of French. = basic ADJ

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. See rudimental.

Moby Thesaurus

Lilliputian, Tom Thumb, abecedarian, aboriginal, antenatal, arrested, autochthonous, backward, basal, basic, basilar, beginning, budding, central, coarse, creative, crucial, crude, dumpy, dwarf, dwarfed, dwarfish, elemental, elementary, elfin, embryonic, essential, fetal, first, formative, foundational, fundamental, generative, genetic, germinal, gestatory, immature, imperfect, in embryo, in its infancy, in ovo, in the bud, in the rough, inaugural, inceptive, inchoate, inchoative, incipient, incunabular, infant, infantile, initial, initiative, initiatory, introductory, inventive, meager, midget, nanoid, nascent, natal, original, oversimple, parturient, postnatal, pregnant, prenatal, primal, primary, prime, primeval, primitive, primogenial, primordial, pristine, procreative, protogenic, pygmy, radical, reductionistic, reductive, rough, roughcast, roughhewn, rude, rudimental, runty, scraggy, scrubby, seminal, shriveled, shrunk, shrunken, simplistic, squat, stunted, unblown, uncultivated, uncultured, uncut, underdeveloped, underlying, undersize, undersized, undeveloped, unfashioned, unfinished, unformed, unhewn, unlabored, unlicked, unpolished, unprocessed, unrefined, unshaped, untreated, unworked, unwrought, ur, vestigial, wizened