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Of or pertaining to rudiments; consisting in first principles; elementary; initial; as, rudimental essays.

Pertaining to, or formed by, the letters of the alphabet; alphabetic; hence, rudimentary. Abecedarian psalms, hymns, etc., compositions in which (like the 119th psalm in Hebrew) distinct portions or verses commence with successive letters of the alphabet. Hook.

To become checked in normal development, so as either to remain rudimentary or shrink away wholly; to become sterile.

Imperfectly formed or developed; rudimentary; sterile; as, an abortive organ, stamen, ovule, etc.

A small lemuroid mammal (Arctocebus Calabarensis) of Africa. It has only a rudimentary tail.

A genus of American monkeys with prehensile tails, and having the thumb wanting or rudimentary. See Spider monkey, and Coaita.

fected with atrophy, as a tissue or organ; arrested in development at a very early stage; rudimentary.

In Diptera, the rudimentary posterior wing.

Relating to the blastema; rudimentary.

- Blind snake (Zoöl.), a small, harmless, burrowing snake, of the family Typhlopidæ, with rudimentary eyes. -- Blind spot (Anat.), the point in the retina of the eye where the optic nerve enters, and which is insensible to light. -- Blind tooling, in bookbinding and leather work, the indented impression of heated too…

One who is receiving rudimentary instruction in the doctrines of Christianity; a neophyte; in the primitive church, one officially recognized as a Christian, and admitted to instruction preliminary to admission to full membership in the church.

A short caulis or stem, esp. the rudimentary stem seen in the embryo of seed; -- otherwise called a radicle.

One of a tropical family of snakelike lizards (Chalcidæ), having four small or rudimentary legs.

A kind of spider monkey (Ateles chameck), having the thumbs rudimentary and without a nail.

Having concealed or rudimentary gills.

In any animal, esp. of the Herbivora, a rudimentary claw or small hoof not reaching the ground. Some cut off the dewclaws [of greyhounds]. J. H. Walsh.

f purposelessness; a term applied by Haeckel to that branch of physiology which treats of rudimentary organs, in view of their being useless to the life of the organism. To the doctrine of dysteleology, or the denial of final causes, a proof of the real existence of such a thing as instinct must necessarily be fatal. W…

Pertaining to rudiments or first principles; rudimentary; elementary. "The elemental rules of erudition." Cawthorn.

Pertaining to an embryo; rudimentary; undeveloped; as, an embryo bud.

Of or pertaining to an embryo; embryonal; rudimentary. Embryonic sac or vesicle (Bot.), the vesicle within which the embryo is developed in the ovule; -- sometimes called also amnios sac, and embryonal sac.