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say it: ur-IJ-uh-nuhl
original is an adjective and noun meaning "preceding all others in time or being as first made or performed". It carries 6 recorded senses.
preceding all others in time or being as first made or performed
“the original inhabitants of the Americas”
“the book still has its original binding”
“restored the house to its original condition”
“the original performance of the opera”
“the original cast”
“retracted his original statement”
(of e.g. information) not secondhand or by way of something intermediary
“his work is based on only original, not secondary, sources”
being or productive of something fresh and unusual; or being as first made or thought of
“a truly original approach”
“with original music”
“an original mind”
not derived or copied or translated from something else
“the play is original; not an adaptation”
“he kept the original copy and gave her only a xerox”
“the translation misses much of the subtlety of the original French”
an original creation (i.e., an audio recording) from which copies can be made
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for original come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.