elementary

comparative more elementary · superlative most elementary · alternative obsolete elementar · alternative Philippines elem

1. Relating to the basic, essential or fundamental part of something.
2. Very simple.
3. Relating to an elementary school.
4. sciencesFundamental: serving as a building block for more complicated structures or processes.

   It is clear, therefore, that idealism contradicts the most elementary scientific knowledge and is contrary to all progress, whether social or intellectual.

   1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozwój (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 453

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   The physics of elementary particles in the 20th century was distinguished by the observation of particles whose existence had been predicted by theorists sometimes decades earlier.

   2012 March 28, Jeremy Bernstein, “A Palette of Particles”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 146

   1. natural sciencesRelating to a subatomic particle.
   2. chemistryInvolving only a single reaction step and transition state.
   3. mathematicsWhich performs a row or column operation on another matrix when the two are multiplied; see Elementary matrix on Wikipedia.Wikipedia (Such matrices are called "elementary" because they generate the general linear group).
   4. mathematicsArising from Vieta's formulas; see Elementary symmetric polynomial on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
5. mathematicsStraightforward, employing only basic techniques; not requiring substantial knowledge (of some particular domain, object, etc.).
   1. mostly historical outside the phrase "Elementary number theory"mathematicsMaking no use of complex analysis.
6. archaicSublunary; not celestial; belonging to the sublunary sphere, to which the four classical elements (earth, air, fire and water) were confined; composed of or pertaining to these four elements.

plural elementaries · alternative obsolete elementar · alternative Philippines elem

1. abbreviationcountableellipsisinformaluncountableEllipsis of elementary school.

   At Lakeside Elementary I learned to appreciate the forest.

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   He was my dentist. My mom took me to him back in elementary and junior high.

   2011 May 3, Lee Livingston, “Cleveland – Summer of 1962”, in In the Rearview Mirror: A Road Trip into the Heart of Another Country – America 1961, Carthay Press, →ISBN, page 146

2. countablehuman sciencesA supernatural being associated with the elements.

   The demon (or elementary) of the South-West wind was particularly dreaded, as being the gini of fever and madness.

   1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 45

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   […] the spiritual man is either translated like Enoch and Elias to the higher state, or falls down lower than an elementary again […]

   2003, H P Blavatsky, The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky, volume 1

   But, in Africa these became definite in their Egyptian Types, by means of which we can follow their development from the elementaries of Chaos and Space into Celestial Intelligencers […]

   2007, Gerald Massey, The Natural Genesis, page 332