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First; chief.

First born, made, or generated; original; primary; elemental; as, primogenial light. Glanvill.

Of or pertaining to primogeniture. [R.]

The first ancestor; a forefather.

son, and in the royal family the eldest son of the sovereign is entitled to the throne by primogeniture. In exceptional cases, among the female children, the crown descends by right of primogeniture to the eldest daughter only and her issue. Blackstone.

The state or privileges of the firstborn. Burke.

First in order; primary; original; of earliest origin; as, primordial condition. "The primordial facts of our intelligent nature." Sir W. Hamilton.

Devotion to, or persistence in, conditions of the primordial state. H. Spencer.

At the beginning; under the first order of things; originally.

A name given to several kinds of plums; as, red primordian, amber primordian, etc.

Primordial. [R.] Boyle.

Chief; primary; primordial. [Obs.] Cudworth.

embracing the calciferous, Quebec, and Chazy epochs. This period immediately follows the primordial or Cambrian period, and is by many geologists regarded as the beginning of the Silurian age, See the Diagram, under Geology.

A genus of large trilobites characteristic of the primordial formations.

The condition of being born after another in the same family; - - distinguished from primogeniture. [R.] Sir T. Browne.

A subdivision of the Primordial or Cambrian period in American geology; -- so named from the sandstone of Potsdam, New York. See Chart of Geology.

The act of laying claim; the claim laid; assumption; pretension. Spenser. Primogeniture can not have any pretense to a right of solely inheriting property or power. Locke. I went to Lambeth with Sir R. Brown's pretense to the wardenship of Merton College, Oxford. Evelyn.

First born, or first of all; original; primary. See Primogenial.

Of or pertaining to the beginning or origin, or to early times; original; primordial; primeval; first; as, primitive innocence; the primitive church. "Our primitive great sire." Milton.

A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.