primate

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pri·mate

(prī′mĭt, -māt′)

1. (prī′māt′) Any of various mammals of the order Primates, which consists of the lemurs, lorises, tarsiers, New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, and apes including humans, and is characterized by nails on the hands and feet, a short snout, and a large brain.

2. A bishop of highest rank in a province or country.

[From New Latin Prīmātēs, order name, from Latin prīmātēs, pl. of prīmās, principal, of first rank, from prīmus, first; see per in Indo-European roots. Sense 2, from Middle English primat, from Old French, from Medieval Latin prīmās, prīmāt-, from Latin.]

pri·ma′tial (-mā′shəl) adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

primate

(ˈpraɪmeɪt)

(Animals) any placental mammal of the order Primates, typically having flexible hands and feet with opposable first digits, good eyesight, and, in the higher apes, a highly developed brain: includes lemurs, lorises, monkeys, apes, and man

adj

(Animals) of, relating to, or belonging to the order Primates

[C18: from New Latin primates, plural of prīmās principal, from prīmus first]

primate

(ˈpraɪmeɪt)

1. (Ecclesiastical Terms) another name for archbishop

2. (Anglicanism) Primate of all England the Archbishop of Canterbury

3. (Anglicanism) Primate of England the Archbishop of York

[C13: from Old French, from Latin prīmās principal, from prīmus first]

primatial adj

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

pri•mate

(ˈpraɪ meɪt or, esp. for 1, -mɪt)

n.

1. an archbishop or bishop ranking first among the bishops of a province or country.

2. any mammal of the order Primates, comprising the three suborders Anthropoidea (humans, apes, Old World monkeys, and New World monkeys), Prosimii (lemurs, lorises, and bush babies), and Tarsioidea (tarsiers).

3. Archaic. a chief or leader.

[1175–1225; Middle English primat dignitary, religious leader < Late Latin prīmāt- (s. of prīmās), n. use of Latin prīmās of first rank, derivative of prīmus first (see prime); (definition 2) taken as singular of New Latin Primates Primates, as if ending in -ate¹]

pri•ma′tal, adj., n.

pri•ma′tial (-ˈmeɪ ʃəl)

pri′mate•ship` (-mɪtˌʃɪp, -meɪt-) n.

pri·mate

(prī′māt′)

Any of various mammals having a highly developed brain, eyes facing forward, a shortened nose and muzzle, and opposable thumbs. Primates usually live in groups with complex social systems, and their high intelligence allows them to adapt their behavior successfully to different environments. Lemurs, monkeys, apes, and humans are primates.

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun	1.	primate - a senior clergyman and dignitary archpriest, prelate, hierarch, high priest priest - a clergyman in Christian churches who has the authority to perform or administer various religious rites; one of the Holy Orders
	2.	primate - any placental mammal of the order Primates; has good eyesight and flexible hands and feet eutherian, eutherian mammal, placental, placental mammal - mammals having a placenta; all mammals except monotremes and marsupials order Primates, Primates - an animal order including lemurs and tarsiers and monkeys and apes and human beings simian - an ape or monkey ape - any of various primates with short tails or no tail at all anthropoid - any member of the suborder Anthropoidea including monkeys and apes and hominids hominoid - a primate of the superfamily Hominoidea hominid - a primate of the family Hominidae monkey - any of various long-tailed primates (excluding the prosimians) prosimian - primitive primates having large ears and eyes and characterized by nocturnal habits lemur - large-eyed arboreal prosimian having foxy faces and long furry tails tarsier - nocturnal arboreal primate of Indonesia and the Philippines having huge eyes and digits ending in pads to facilitate climbing; the only primate that spurns all plant material as food living entirely on insects and small vertebrates

primate

noun see monkeys, apes and other primates

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

رَئيس أساقِفَهرَئيسيّات: أعلى درجة من الثَّدْيِيّات

arcibiskupprimát

ærkebiskoppattedyrprimat

erkibiskupprímati, fremdardÿr

primate quadrumane i primati

arhibīskapsprimāts

primat

primata

primát

başparmaklıbaşpiskoposprimat

大主教灵长目类动物

primate

[ˈpraɪmeɪt] N

1. (Zool) → primate m

2. (Rel) → primado m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

primate

[ˈpraɪmeɪt] n

(= animal) → primate m

[ˈpraɪmət] (= priest) → primat m

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

primate

(Zool) → Primat m

(Eccl) → Primas m; Primate of England/all England → Erzbischof von York/Canterbury

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

primate

[sense a ˈpraɪmeɪt, sense b ˈpraɪmɪt] n

a. (Zool) → primate m

b. (Rel) → primate m

primate¹

(ˈpraimeit) noun

an archbishop.

primate²

(ˈpraimət) noun

a member of the highest order of mammals, ie man, monkeys, apes, lemurs.

References in classic literature ?

Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, Archbishop and Comte of Lyon, Primate of the Gauls, was allied both to Louis XI., through his brother, Pierre, Seigneur de Beaujeu, who had married the king's eldest daughter, and to Charles the Bold through his mother, Agnes of Burgundy.

View in context

The authority this man, whose name was Kolory, seemed to exercise over the rest, the episcopal part he took in the Feast of Calabashes, his sleek and complacent appearance, the mystic characters which were tattooed upon his chest, and above all the mitre he frequently wore, in the shape of a towering head-dress, consisting of part of a cocoanut branch, the stalk planted uprightly on his brow, and the leaflets gathered together and passed round the temples and behind the ears, all these pointed him out as Lord Primate of Typee.

And yet Mehevi, and other chiefs of unquestionable veracity--to say nothing of the Primate himself--assured me over and over again that Moa Artua was the tutelary deity of Typee, and was more to be held in honour than a whole battalion of the clumsy idols in the Hoolah Hoolah grounds.

One would almost imagine from the long list that is given of cannibal primates, bishops, arch-deacons, prebendaries, and other inferior ecclesiastics, that the sacerdotal order far outnumbered the rest of the population, and that the poor natives were more severely priest-ridden than even the inhabitants of the papal states.

View in context

The bigoted and haughty primate, Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, controlled the religious affairs of the realm, and was consequently invested with powers which might have wrought the utter ruin of the two Puritan colonies, Plymouth and Massachusetts.

View in context

If he struggled up from barbarism, and still more remotely from the lower Primates, his ideal should be to surpass man himself and reach Superman (see especially the Prologue).

View in context

When they compared year-to-year fluctuations in primate survival to similar data for other animals - namely, two dozen species of birds, reptiles, and mammals - they found that primate survival remained more stable despite seasonal variation in rainfall.

Primates more resilient than other animals to seasonal ups and downs

"It's a great achievement," says Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a developmental biologist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Beaverton.

Primates carry and pass along a foreign gene: marmosets produce glowing protein in all tested tissues

They also talked about what they would like to see at the 2008 Lambeth Conference (which gathers all Anglican bishops) and they approved a change in the process for nominations in the next election of a primate; they also passed a statement concerning issues of human sexuality at the next General Synod.

Dioceses may soon stop paying into liability fund

No evidence exists that SIV strains from the remaining nonhuman primate lineages have infected humans, although many grow in human cells in vitro as do SIVcpz and SIVsm (3).

Divergent HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus surveillance, Zaire

The two new species of titi monkeys (Callicebus bernhardi, left, Callicebus stephennashi, right) roamed undiscovered in the Amazon rainforest until they were spotted in 1996 and 2001 by Dutch primatologist (primate scientist) Marc van Roosmalen of Brazil's National Institute for Amazon Research.

Monkey business. (Freeze Frame)

WHEN DELEGATES meet in Vancouver this July for the 42nd General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, they will vote for a new primate to succeed Archbishop Fred Hiltz.

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