- prime
- [[t]pra͟ɪm[/t]]
♦♦♦primes, priming, primed1) ADJ: ADJ n You use prime to describe something that is most important in a situation.
Political stability, meanwhile, will be a prime concern...
It could be a prime target for guerrilla attack...
The police will see me as the prime suspect!...
Prime candidate to take over his job is Margaret Ramsay.
2) ADJ: ADJ n You use prime to describe something that is of the best possible quality.It was one of the City's prime sites, giving a clear view of the Stock Exchange and the Bank of England.
Syn:3) ADJ: ADJ n You use prime to describe an example of a particular kind of thing that is absolutely typical.The prime example is Macy's, once the undisputed king of California retailers.
Syn:4) N-UNCOUNT: usu poss N If someone or something is in their prime, they are at the stage in their existence when they are at their strongest, most active, or most successful.Maybe I'm just coming into my prime now...
She was in her intellectual prime...
We've had a series of athletes trying to come back well past their prime.
...young persons in the prime of life.
5) VERB If you prime someone to do something, you prepare them to do it, for example by giving them information about it beforehand.[V n] Claire wished she'd primed Sarah beforehand...
[V n for n] Marianne had not known until Arnold primed her for her duties that she was to be the sole female...
[be V-ed to-inf] The White House press corps has been primed to leap to the defense of the fired officials.
Syn:6) VERB If someone primes a bomb or a gun, they prepare it so that it is ready to explode or fire.[V n to-inf] He was priming the bomb to go off in an hour's time...
[V-ed] Tom keeps a primed 10-foot shotgun in his office. [Also V n]
English dictionary. 2008.
