prime – English noun declension

English noun forms of prime

Noun: prime
Singularprime
Pluralprimes

Sample Sentences

  • 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. [1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 314:]
  • They all as glad, as birdes of ioyous Pryme […] [1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 81:]
  • To this end we see how quickly sundry artes Mechanical were found out in the very prime of the world. [[1594], Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], 3rd edition, London: […] Will[iam] Stansby [for Matthew Lownes], published 1611, →OCLC, book II, page 69:]
  • 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,
  • 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; [1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 12”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:]
  • Short were her Marriage-Joys; for in the Prime, / Of Youth, her Lord expir’d before his time: […] [1700, [John] Dryden, “Sigismonda and Guiscardo, from Boccace”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 124:]
  • None but foreigners, excluded by their religion from the cemeteries of the country, are deposited here […]. The far greater part had been cut off in their prime, by unexpected disease or fatal accident. [1813, John Chetwode Eustace, chapter 10, in A Tour through Italy, volume 1, London: J. Mawman, pages 225–226:]
  • Once upon a time you dressed so fine. You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you? [1965, Bob Dylan, “Like a Rolling Stone”:]
  • 1965 (November 3rd) "The Courtship of Elly" (Beverly Hillbillies s4e8) Granny
  • Cousin Pearl says that folks back home are beginning to talk, asking about your spinster daughter. Now, Jed, let's not fool ourselves with city talk. You know and I know that prime is fourteen. Anything over that, and you're slidin' downhill.
  • And it’s daunting because each segment has to tell a full, complete story in something like six minutes while doing justice to revered source material and including the non-stop laughs and genius gags that characterized The Simpsons in its god-like prime. [2012 April 29, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Treehouse of Horror III” (season 4, episode 5; originally aired 10/29/1992)”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):]
  • Give him always of the prime;
  • And but a little at a time. [1726, Jonathan Swift, “To a Lady, who desired the author to write some verses upon her in the heroic style” in The Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift, London: W. Bowyer et al., Volume 7, p. 396, Give no more to ev’ry guest Than he’s able to digest]
  • I found just as we were fearful we would find that many of the big primes felt that this was a change of policy on the part of the U.S. Government to let the big fellows take care of it, and they were ready to cut back, and in many instances were cutting back[…] [1966, United States. Congress. House. Select Committee on Small Business, Hearings, Reports and Prints of the House Select Committee on Small Business, page 60:]
  • The large primes are struggling to do things the way Anduril does, because they're publicly traded companies with an existing investor class that invested in them to be a certain type of company. [2023 December 4, Can Palmer Luckey Reinvent the U.S. Defense Industry? - WSJ, The Wall Street Journal]
  • Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes. [2013 July-August, Sarah Glaz, “Ode to Prime Numbers”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4:]
  • 3 is a prime.
  • I'm threatening to build a prime here.
  • […] he pull’d the Trigger, but Providence being pleas’d to preserve me for some other Purpose, the Cock snapp’d, and miss’d Fire. Whether the Prime was wet in the Pan, or by what other Miracle it was I escap’d his Fury, I cannot say […] [1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, pages 95–96:]
  • Tomlinson, Shawn M. (2015), Going Pro for $200 & How to Choose a Prime Lens, →ISBN, page 72: “By the time I shifted to my first autofocus film SLR with the Pentax PZ-10, primes were considered things of the past”

Etymology

1. From Middle English prime, from Old French prime and its etymon, Latin prīmus (“first”), from earlier prīsmos < *prīsemos < Proto-Italic *priisemos, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“beyond, before”). Doublet of primo and primus.
2. The noun sense "apostrophe-like symbol" originates from the fact that the symbol ′ was originally a superscript Roman numeral one. See: Middle English Nouns 'prime', Latin Nouns 'prīmus'.

Verbs referencing "prime"

Spanish Nouns prime.