Other forms: secondaries
Secondary means second in line — coming after the main thing, or mattering less than it. The cost was the real worry and the colour was secondary; secondary school is the one you move up to at eleven.
Where the primary is first or is the source, the secondary follows from it. In paint, the primary colours are red, yellow and blue, and mixing any two gives a secondary: orange, green, purple. In a hospital a secondary infection is one that arrives on top of the first. In research, primary sources are the letters and records made at the time, and secondary sources are the books written about them later. The phrase to learn is of secondary importance, and the whole word is easier to hold if you keep primary standing next to it.
1adjectivesubordinateLess important than the main thing.
“The pay was good, so the commute felt secondary.”
synonyms: lesser, subordinate
2adjectivecomingComing second in order, or belonging to the stage after the first.
“He teaches maths at a secondary school.”
3nouncolourA colour made by mixing two primary colours.
“Orange, green and purple are the secondaries.”
4adjectivehappeningHappening as a result of, or on top of, something earlier.
“A secondary infection kept her in hospital another week.”
Secondary comes from Middle English secundarie and Latin secundārius, 'of the second class or quality'. That was built from secundus — the word that also gave English second — plus the ending -ārius, which English wears as -ary. So secondary is second with a suffix on it, and in two thousand years it has never stopped meaning what it says: the one behind the first.
Latin
secundārius — of the second class or quality
Middle English
secundarie
English, today
secondary
From Middle English secundarie, from Latin secundārius (“of the second class or quality”), from secundus (whence the English second) + -ārius (whence the English suffix -ary), equivalent to second + -ary; compare the French secondaire, the Italian secondario, the Occitan secundari, the Portuguese secundario, and the Spanish secundario.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA