primordial

1. not comparableFirst, earliest or original.

   the primordial facts of our intelligent nature

   a. 1857, William Hamilton, edited by H[enry] L[ongueville] Mansel and John Veitch, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, published 1859–1860, →OCLC

   1 more example

   As an archetypal image of primordial unity, the cosmic egg suggests that there is unity and fragmentation, eternity and time.

   1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light:Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, page 9

2. not comparablebiologyCharacteristic of the earliest stage of the development of an organism, or relating to a primordium.

   a primordial leaf; a primordial cell

3. not comparablePrimeval.
4. not comparableOf an element or isotope: occurring primordially (on Earth) (i.e. inherited from when the Earth was formed); because it is stable, or radioactive but so long-lived that some is left over from when the Earth was formed. For example, primordial radioisotopes (T = half-life in years) include uranium-235 (T = 7×10⁸), potassium-40 (T = 1.25×10⁹), uranium-238 (T = 4.5×10⁹), and thorium-232 (T = 1.4×10¹⁰).

plural primordials

1. A first principle or element.
2. A primordial condition or state.

   1 more example

   With a horrified shriek she tore herself from Tarzan’s arms, and the ape-man turned just in time to ward with his arm a terrific blow that De Coude had aimed at his head. Once, twice, three times the heavy stick fell with lightning rapidity, and each blow aided in the transition of the ape-man back to the primordial.

   1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 45