Primate

How to spell primate

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce primate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does primate mean?

1. nounA mammal of the order that includes humans, apes, monkeys and lemurs.

Primate in a sentence

• The zoologist studied how each primate used tools in the wild.

• A gorilla is the largest living primate on the planet.

Where does primate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin primas, meaning 'of the first rank' or 'leader', which was itself built on primus, the ordinary Latin word for 'first'. In medieval Latin primas came to name the chief bishop of a country or region, the one ranked first among his fellow churchmen, and English borrowed this ecclesiastical sense through Old French in the 1200s. Several centuries later, when naturalists were classifying the living world, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus reached for the same Latin idea and labelled the order containing humans, apes and monkeys Primates, literally 'those of the first rank', because he placed them at the top of the animal kingdom. That is how one Latin root gave English both a senior clergyman and a zoological category. The shared notion of 'first' is a handy reminder that the word begins with the same prim- you see in 'primary' and 'prime'.

How the word is built

• prim- (from primus: first)
• -ate (noun suffix denoting rank or kind)