rudiment

plural rudiments

1. in pluraloftenA fundamental principle or skill, especially in a field of learning.

   We'll be learning the rudiments of thermodynamics next week.

   2 more examples

   This boy is forest-born, / And hath been tutored in the rudiments / Of many desperate studies.

   c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iv]

   The very emphasis on reading readiness and on the methods employed to teach children the rudiments of reading has meant that the other, the higher, levels of reading have tended to be slighted.

   1972, Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 26

   Synonyms: basics, fundamentals

2. in pluraloftenA form that lacks full or complex development.

   I have the rudiments of an escape plan.

   3 more examples

   But I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit / Those rudiments, and see before thine eyes / The monarchies of the earth.

   1671, John Milton, “(please specify the page)”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC

   The single leaf is the rudiment of beauty in landscape.

   a. 1865, Isaac Taylor, Ornamentation of Nature

   Despite the assassination of Stolypin in 1911, for some years Russia was clearly moving in the direction of a bourgeois state with the rudiments of a constitutional monarchy.

   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 468

3. biologyA body part that no longer has a function
4. entertainmentIn percussion, one of a selection of basic drum patterns learned as an exercise.

   Show me your rudiments.

   2014, Damien Chazelle, Whiplash, spoken by Terence Fletcher (J. K. Simmons)

present singular third person rudiments · participle present rudimenting · participle past rudimented · past rudimented

1. transitiveTo ground; to settle in first principles.