Library / English Dictionary

PRIMER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: primer   

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The first or preliminary coat of paint or size applied to a surface

Synonyms:

flat coat; ground; primer; primer coat; priming; priming coat; undercoat

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("primer" is a kind of...):

coat of paint (a layer of paint covering something else)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "primer"):

couch (a flat coat of paint or varnish used by artists as a primer)

Derivation:

prime (cover with a primer; apply a primer to)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any igniter that is used to initiate the burning of a propellant

Synonyms:

fuse; fusee; fuze; fuzee; primer; priming

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("primer" is a kind of...):

igniter; ignitor; light; lighter (a device for lighting or igniting fuel or charges or fires)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "primer"):

detonating fuse (a fuse containing an explosive)

safety fuse (a slow-burning fuse consisting of a tube or cord filled or saturated with combustible matter; used to ignite detonators from a distance)

time-fuse (a fuse made to burn for a given time (especially to explode a bomb))

Derivation:

prime (insert a primer into (a gun, mine, or charge) preparatory to detonation or firing)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An introductory textbook

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("primer" is a kind of...):

school text; schoolbook; text; text edition; textbook (a book prepared for use in schools or colleges)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "primer"):

speller (an introductory textbook to teach spelling)

hornbook (a primer that provides instruction in the rudiments or basic skills of a branch of knowledge)

Credits

 Context examples: 

This protein is involved in the biosynthesis of RNA primers for the Okazaki fragments made during DNA replication of the lagging strand.

(DNA Primase Small Subunit, NCI Thesaurus)

Variation of the polymerase chain reaction used to identify differentially expressed genes. mRNA from two different tissue samples is reverse transcribed, then amplified using short, intentionally nonspecific primers.

(Differential Display, NCI Thesaurus)

To this day, when I look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present themselves again before me as they used to do.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

A type of nucleic acid amplification test in which sample DNA is exposed to a single temperature in the presence of multiple sets of primers and a polymerase with replication and high strand displacement activity.

(Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification, NCI Thesaurus)

Normally, during replication of the lagging-strand DNA template, an RNA primer is removed either by an RNase H or by the 5 to 3 exonuclease activity of DNA pol I, and the DNA ligase joins the Okazaki fragments.

(DNA Replication Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/KEGG)