Rudimentary

How to spell rudimentary

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce rudimentary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rudimentary mean?

1. adjectiveExisting in only a basic, elementary, or undeveloped form.

Rudimentary in a sentence

• The recruits were given only rudimentary training before the deadline.

• His rudimentary grasp of Spanish was enough to order a meal but little more.

Where does rudimentary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin rudimentum, which meant a beginning, a first attempt, or the early training of a soldier or pupil. That noun was built on rudis, an adjective meaning rough, raw, or unworked, the same word that gives us the everyday term rude in its older sense of unpolished or unrefined. By the late 1500s English had adopted rudiment to mean a first principle or basic element of a subject, and the adjective rudimentary followed by the early 1800s to describe anything that exists only in a basic, undeveloped, or imperfect form. In biology it took on the special meaning of an organ that has stopped developing or remains in a primitive state, such as a rudimentary wing. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle: writers hear ROO-duh-MEN-tree and may drop the second i or the e, so it helps to remember the buried rudiment, the basic building block, sitting inside the longer word.

How the word is built

• rudi- (from Latin rudis: rough, raw, unwrought)
• -ment (result/state noun suffix)
• -ary (relating to, adjective suffix)