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Primary vs Modal - What's the difference?

primary | modal |

As adjectives the difference between primary and modal

is that primary is the first in a group or series while modal is of, or relating to a mode or modus.

As nouns the difference between primary and modal

is that primary is a primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party while modal is (logic) a modal proposition.

As a verb primary

is (us|intransitive) to take part in a primary election.

primary

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • The first in a group or series.
  • Children attend primary school, and teenagers attend secondary school.
  • * Bishop Pearson
  • the church of Christ, in its primary institution
  • * John Locke
  • These I call original, or primary , qualities of body.
  • Main; principal; placed ahead of others.
  • Preferred stock has primary claim on dividends, ahead of common stock.
  • (geology) Earliest formed; fundamental.
  • (chemistry) Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some quality or property in the first degree; having undergone the first stage of substitution or replacement.
  • (label) idiopathic
  • Derived terms

    * primarily * primary care * primary color, primary colour * primary producer * primary research * primary school * primary source

    See also

    * first * primus inter pares * secondary (2) * tertiary (3) * quaternary (4)

    Noun

    (primaries)
  • A primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party.
  • The first year of grade school.
  • A base or fundamental component; something that is irreducible.
  • The most massive component of a gravitationally bound system.
  • A primary school.
  • * 2001 , David Woods, Martyn Cribb, Effective LEAs and school improvement
  • Excellence in Cities offers a further development of this approach, whereby secondary schools operate with small clusters of primaries as mini-EAZs.
  • (ornithology) Any flight feather attached to the manus (hand) of a bird.
  • A primary colour.
  • * 2003 , Julie A Jacko, Andrew Sears, The human-computer interaction handbook
  • By adding and subtracting the three primaries , cyan, yellow, and magenta are produced. These are called subtractive primaries.
  • (electronics) A directly driven inductive coil, as in a transformer or induction motor that is magnetically coupled to a secondary
  • Verb

  • (US) To take part in a primary election.
  • (US, politics) To challenge an incumbent sitting politician for their political party's endorsement to run for re-election, through running a challenger campaign in a primary election
  • modal

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • of, or relating to a mode or modus
  • (grammar) of, relating to, or describing the mood of a clause
  • (grammar) modal verb
  • *
  • Using the same type of distributional criterion, we could argue that only a Verb (in its base form) can occur in the position marked — in (23) below to complete the sentence:
    (23)     They/it can —
    [...]
    Conversely, the only type of word which could be used to begin a three-word sentence such as (25) below:
    (25)     — I be frank?
    is a Modal : cf. [...]
  • (music) of, relating to, or composed in the musical modi by which an octave is divided, associated with emotional moods in Ancient — and in medieval ecclesiastical music
  • (logic) of, or relating to the modality between propositions
  • (statistics) relating to the statistical mode.
  • (computing) Having separate modes in which user input has different effects.
  • (computer science) requiring immediate user interaction (often used as modal dialog'' or ''modal window )
  • (metaphysics) Relating to the form of a thing rather to any of its attributes
  • Synonyms

    * forming * conditioning

    Derived terms

    * modality * modally * modal auxiliary * modal logic * modal particle * quasimodal

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (logic) A modal proposition
  • (linguistics) A modal form, notably a modal auxiliary.
  • Anagrams

    * * * ----