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First in order of time; original; primeval; primitive; primary. "Prime forests." Tennyson. She was not the prime cause, but I myself. Milton.

In a prime manner; excellently.

The quality or state of being prime, or excellent.

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

A game at cards, now unknown. Shak.

See Primrose. [Obs.] "She was a primerole." Chaucer.

Belonging to the first ages; pristine; original; primitive; primary; as, the primeval innocence of man. "This is the forest primeval." Longfellow. From chaos, and primeval darkness, came Light. Keats.

In a primeval manner; in or from the earliest times; originally. Darwin.

Primeval. [Obs.]

Serving to depress. [R.] "Depriment muscles." Derham.

A print; impression.

A kind of type, in size between small pica and bourgeois.

A machine or implement for applying fresh primers to spent cartridge shells, so that the shells be used again.

A primer for teaching the alphabet and first elements of reading. [Obs.]

A primer; the first principle or rudiment of anything. [R.] Fuller.

An A-B-C book; a primer. [Obs.] Shak.

An addition to the price; rise in price or value; as, an advance on the prime cost of goods.

To reduce to nothing; to obliterate. Light, the prime work of God, to me's extinct. And all her various objects of delight Annulled. Milton.

A size of type between long primer and brevier. See Type.

fire cracker of large size. -- Cannon lock, a device for firing a cannon by a percussion primer. -- Cannon metal. See Gun Metal. -- Cannon pinion, the pinion on the minute hand arbor of a watch or clock, which drives the hand but permits it to be moved in setting. -- Cannon proof, impenetrable by cannon balls. --…