prime

First in importance, degree, or rank.

Our prime concern here is to keep the community safe.

First in time, order, or sequence.

Both the English and French governments established prime meridians in their capitals.

I thought it lawful from my forme act, / And the ſame end ; ſtill watching to oppreſs / Iſrael’s oppreſſours : of what now I ſuffer / She was not the prime cauſe, but I my ſelf, / Who vanquiſht with a peal of words (O weakneſs !) / Gave up my fort of ſilence to a Woman.

First in excellence, quality, or value.

This is a prime location for a bookstore.

Gemmen (says he), you all well know / The joy there is whene'er we meet; / It's what I call the primest go, / And rightly named, 'tis—'quite a treat,' […]

Having exactly two integral factors: itself and unity (1 in the case of integers).

Thirteen is a prime number.

Such that if it divides a product, it divides one of the multiplicands.

The first hour of daylight; the first canonical hour.

His larum bell might lowd and wyde be hard, When cause requyrd, but neuer out of time; Early and late it rong, at euening and at prime.

The religious service appointed to this hour.

The early morning generally.

They all as glad, as birdes of ioyous Pryme […]

The earliest stage of something.

To this end we see how quickly sundry artes Mechanical were found out in the very prime of the world.

1645, Edmund Waller, “To a very young Lady” (earlier title: “To my young Lady Lucy Sidney”) in Poems, &c. Written upon Several Occasions, and to Several Persons, London: H. Herringman, 1686, p. 101, Hope waits upon the flowry prime,

The most active, thriving, or successful stage or period.

When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver’d o'er with white;

Short were her Marriage-Joys; for in the Prime, / Of Youth, her Lord expir’d before his time: […]

To fill or prepare the chamber of a mechanism for its main work.

You'll have to press this button twice to prime the fuel pump.

To apply a coat of primer paint to.

I need to prime these handrails before we can apply the finish coat.

To be renewed.

Nights baſhfull Empreſſe, though ſhe often wayne, / As oft repents her darkneſſe ; primes againe ; / And with her circling Hornes does re-embrace / Her brothers wealth, and orbs her ſilver face.

To serve as priming for the charge of a gun.

To work so that foaming occurs from too violent ebullition, which causes water to become mixed with, and be carried along with, the steam that is formed.

Although we took our eight bogies along to Whitstable at 60 m.p.h., and made a clean start from there, after Herne Bay the engine primed badly on Blacksole Bank and nearly stopped before we got over the top. Then we ran like the wind across the marshes with half-regulator, 30 per cent cut-off, and the engine blowing off.