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say it: PRAHY-muhl
primal is an adjective meaning "serving as an essential component". It is pronounced /ˈpɹaɪməl/ — PRAHY-muhl. It carries 2 recorded senses.
serving as an essential component
“a cardinal rule”
“the central cause of the problem”
“an example that was fundamental to the argument”
“computers are fundamental to modern industrial structure”
having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state
“aboriginal forests”
“primal eras before the appearance of life on earth”
“the forest primeval”
“primordial matter”
“primordial forms of life”
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 primal 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.