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primate

UK/ˈpɹaɪmeɪt/US/ˈpɹaɪmeɪt/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,618 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: primates

A primate is a member of the group that includes apes and people. A non-human primate, primate behaviour, study primates.

The group is defined by grasping hands, forward-facing eyes and a large brain for the body, and it runs from the mouse lemur to the gorilla. The same word is also the title of a senior bishop, which is where the name came from.

Alex Dunkel (Maky) · CC BY 3.0

Definitions of primate

  1. 1nounprimateA member of the group that includes apes and people.B2+

    “Chimpanzees and bonobos are the primates most closely related to humans.”

primate is an animal group.

Where it comes from

Latin primas means of the first rank. Linnaeus chose the name for the order he placed at the top of his scheme.

  1. Latin

    prīmās — one of the first, chief, excellent, noble

  2. French

    primate

  3. English, today

    primate

1876. From French primate, from the substantivization of Latin prīmās (“one of the first, chief, excellent, noble”), same as Etymology 2. So named due to the belief that primates are the highest order of mammals or animals.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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primate in the wild

  • The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and primate of the Church of England.

    Archbishop of Canterbury

  • New primate species continue to be discovered: over 25 species were described in the 2000s, 36 in the 2010s, and six in the 2020s.

    Primate

  • Some primates, including gorillas, humans and baboons, are primarily ground-dwelling rather than arboreal, but all species have adaptations for climbing trees.

    Primate

  • Anthropologists tend to focus on humans' evolutionary history; they look to primates for greater insights into how Homo Sapiens have evolved.

    Primatology

  • Henry Ndukuba, Archbishop of Abuja, became its primate in 2020.

    Church of Nigeria

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the prīmās family

primate

primate — used about once every 4,818 pages · #9,618 · point at the bar for the others