primevality

English

Alternative forms

• primævality (obsolete)
• primaevality

Etymology

From primeval +‎ -ity.

Noun

primevality (uncountable)

1. The quality of being primeval.
   • 1840 July, William Howitt, “Nooks of the World.—No. III. A Glimpse of Some of Our Local Religions.”, in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume VII, number LXXIX, Edinburgh: William Tait, […]; Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., London; and John Cumming, Dublin, page 431:

     He had been, the greater part of his life, a Quaker; and, to the day of his death, he wore the Quaker costume in its most perfect primevality—his broad hat, half cock and half slouch; his drab coat, of an ample length and breadth of skirts; his drab waistcoat, with flaps of such liberal dimensions, that they afforded room for pockets as large as those in most men’s coats; his drab breeches, fastened at the knees with buckles; his neat gray worsted stockings; and capacious shoes, clasped with large steel buckles.

   • 1853 October, “Intelligence”, in H. Burgess, editor, The Journal of Sacred Literature, volume V, number IX, London: Blackader and Co., Aldine Chambers, page 272:

     The observations and the assiduity required to make them are not out of measure with the known patience and primevality of the Egyptian priesthood.

   • 1856, Alfred Barry, “The State of Man in Paradise, and the Fall”, in Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament, part the first, London: John W. Parker and Son, page 72:

     The Primevality of Revelation and Spiritual Gifts.

   • 1857 November 7, “Letter from a Friend in Michigan”, in The Kansas Herald of Freedom‎^[1], volume 3, number 13, Lawrence, Kan.:

     I never was more disappointed than in the transition from the primevality of the far West to the more advanced state of society in the Peninsular State, and like all who have left Kansas, I anxiously look for the time of return, which will be early in the spring, if not sooner.

   • 1870 July 23, “The Watering Places. Punchinello’s Vacations.”, in Punchinello, volume I, number 17, New York, N.Y.: Punchinello Publishing Company, page 268:

     After all, there is nothing like nature, in her primevality. […] There he found Nature—there was primevality indeed!

   • 1885, Ariel, volume 9, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn., page 123:

     The jokes had the true histrionic smack of primevality, and the several actors acquitted themselves quite dramatically.

   • 1885 December 12, “A December Evening. A Commentary, Not on the New Testament, But on Old Elkton.”, in The Cecil Whig‎^[2], volume XLV, number 13 (whole 2,235), Elkton, Md.:

     There is an atmosphere of primevality about the immediate vicinity of them, when one glances into the forests at the right and left, but this delusion vanishes when the eye seeks the country to the westward again and the busy mills of toil with their tall chimneys belching forth the vapors of the furnaces loom up before the vision.

   • 1887 July 10, “Splendid City Scenery. Sights of One Day Spent Among the Very Picturesque Views of the City of Saints. Its Architecture; Its Hills and Valleys; Its Drives and Shades; Its River Pictures. Revels iu^[sic] Beauty from Summit Avenue, Merriam’s Bluff, Dayton’s Bluff and Prospect Terrace. A Rapid, but Pleasant Drive Through its Most Favored Avenues and Busy Thoroughfares.”, in St. Paul Sunday Globe, volume IX, number 191, Saint Paul, Minn., section “Among the Hills”, page 12:

     Lake scenery is always enchanting; there is a purity and primevality about it which delights the beholder and bewitches him into a ramble around its shores while the docile team rests.

   • 1895 June 25, “Notes of the Day”, in Western Evening Herald, volume 1, number 56, Plymouth, Dev., page 2:

     But the most astonishing revelation made was the primevality of the method adopted by the landlady of the Commercial Hotel for identifying her customers.

   • 1900, Indian Antiquary, page 368:

     Airless he breathed in primevality / The One beyond whom nought hath ever been.

   • 1901, Forest and Stream, page 483:

     I never had a forest impress me with its “primevality,” if I can so use the term, as did this particular spot.

   • 1902, Cosmo Hamilton, Indiscretions, page 134:

     Think of the jolly primevality of that. Think of the good old prehistoricality of that.

   • 1902 June 15, “Pet Animals and Disease. A Parrot May Convey Throat Ailment to Human Beings.”, in The Sunday Journal, volume LII, number 166, Indianapolis, Ind., part two, page 7:

     When this bit of unthinking primevality is done away with we shall have less of the morbid spirit that fosters anti-vivisection and similar movements.

   • 1904, F. Frankfort Moore, The Original Woman, pages 108–109:

     No doubt the primeval woman, after fifty thousand years or so of primevality—Mr. Marvin liked to talk in periods of fifty thousand years—began to sneer (occasionally) at mere brute strength; but if she did so, that was because she had discovered that there was something stronger than mere brute strength.

   • 1987, Brigitte Rocca-Volmerange, Bruno Guiderdoni, “Spectrophotometric Evolution of Distant Galaxies”, in J. Bergeron, D. Kunth, B. Rocca-Volmerange, J. Tran Thanh Van, editors, High Redshift and Primeval Galaxies, Editions Frontières, →ISBN, page 240:

     But how the primevality of this galaxy, even if it is in an early stage of evolution, can be actually proved? Its emissivity and its metallicity must satisfy to criteria of evolution. So the question is: what are the significant criteria of evolution and then of primevality?

Synonyms

• primevalness