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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

elementary.

Relating to the basic, essential or fundamental part of something.

10 characters5 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˌɛlɪˈmɛntəɹi/Received-Pronunciation/ˌɛlɪˈmɛntɹi/Received-Pronunciation/ˌɛləˈmɛntəɹi/General-American/ˌɛləˈmɛntɹi/General-American
  1. Relating to the basic, essential or fundamental part of something.

  2. Very simple.

  3. Relating to an elementary school.

  4. Fundamental: serving as a building block for more complicated structures or processes.

  5. Fundamental: serving as a building block for more complicated structures or processes. Relating to a subatomic particle.

  6. Fundamental: serving as a building block for more complicated structures or processes. Involving only a single reaction step and transition state.

  7. Fundamental: serving as a building block for more complicated structures or processes. Which 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).

  8. Fundamental: serving as a building block for more complicated structures or processes. Arising from Vieta's formulas; see Elementary symmetric polynomial on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

  9. Straightforward, employing only basic techniques; not requiring substantial knowledge (of some particular domain, object, etc.).

  10. Straightforward, employing only basic techniques; not requiring substantial knowledge (of some particular domain, object, etc.). Making no use of complex analysis.

  11. Sublunary; 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.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

From Middle English elementare, from Latin elementārius (“elementary”), from elementum (“one of the four elements of antiquity; fundamentals”) + -ārius (adjective-forming suffix). Cognate with French élémentaire. By surface analysis, element + -ary.

noun/ˌɛlɪˈmɛntəɹi/Received-Pronunciation/ˌɛlɪˈmɛntɹi/Received-Pronunciation/ˌɛləˈmɛntəɹi/General-American/ˌɛləˈmɛntɹi/General-American
  1. Ellipsis of elementary school.

    abbreviation · alt-of · countable · ellipsis · informal · uncountable
    At Lakeside Elementary I learned to appreciate the forest.
  2. A supernatural being associated with the elements.

    countable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English elementare, from Latin elementārius (“elementary”), from elementum (“one of the four elements of antiquity; fundamentals”) + -ārius (adjective-forming suffix). Cognate with French élémentaire. By surface analysis, element + -ary.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.