adverb
prīmum
prīmum (not comparable)
Classical[ˈpriː.mũː]Ecclesiastical[ˈpriː.mum]
№ 252 of the 1,000 commonest wordsMille Verba core vocabulary
Meaning
- not comparablefirst, at first, in the first place, first of all, for the first time, in advance, immediately
[...] urbem Troiānam prīmum dulcisque meōrum / rēliquiās colerem [...].
“… first I would safeguard the city of Troy and the dear survivors of my [people ...].”29 BCE – 19 BCE, Vergilius, Aeneis 4.342–343omnium primum
first of all27 BCE – 25 BCE, Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita I.19
In the readers how our graded readers gloss it
first
prīmum — in Seneca, ch. XIII
prīmum, adv., v. primus
I. fin. B.
Charlton Lewis's shorter dictionary for students: the same scholarship in plain, modern definitions.
prīmum adv.
neut. of primus, at first, first, in the first place, in the beginning, before all else : primum hoc quaero: quaerenda pecunia primum est, H.: primum omnium ego ipse vigilo, first of all : primum . . . deinde . . . postremo, S.: Caesar primum suo, deinde omnium e conspectu remotis equis, Cs.: primum . . . deinde . . . tum . . . postremo: primum . . . secundo loco . . . deinde . . . tum: primum . . . subinde, H.: primum . . . mox, H.— First, for the first time : quo die primum convocati sumus: ibi primum insuevit exercitus potare, S.: ut primum ex pueris excessit, as soon as : simul ac primum niti possunt, as soon as ever : iam primum inventus discebat, etc., not till now , S.: cupio haec quam primum audire, as soon as possible : quam primum in Numidiam copias adducere, immediately , S.
Origins
Adverbial accusative of prīmus.