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Rank vs Prime - What's the difference?

rank | prime |

As an adjective rank

is heavy, serious, grievous.

As a verb prime is

.

rank

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) .

Adjective

  • Strong of its kind or in character; unmitigated; virulent; thorough; utter.
  • Strong in growth; growing with vigour or rapidity, hence, coarse or gross.
  • * Bible, (w) xli. 5
  • And, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1944, author=(w)
  • , title= The Three Corpse Trick, chapter=5 , passage=The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.}}
  • Suffering from overgrowth or hypertrophy; plethoric.
  • * 1899 , (Joseph Conrad),
  • The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver—over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple
  • Causing strong growth; producing luxuriantly; rich and fertile.
  • (Mortimer)
  • Strong to the senses; offensive; noisome.
  • Having a very strong and bad taste or odor.
  • * (Robert Boyle) (1627-1691)
  • Divers sea fowls taste rank of the fish on which they feed.
  • Complete, used as an intensifier (usually negative, referring to incompetence).
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=March 1, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC
  • , title= Chelsea 2-1 Man Utd , passage=Chelsea remain rank outsiders to retain their crown and they still lie 12 points adrift of United, but Ancelotti will regard this as a performance that supports his insistence that they can still have a say when the major prizes are handed out this season.}}
  • (label) Gross, disgusting.
  • (label) Strong; powerful; capable of acting or being used with great effect; energetic; vigorous; headstrong.
  • (label) Inflamed with venereal appetite.
  • (Shakespeare)
    Synonyms
    * (bad odor) stinky, smelly ** See also: pong (UK) * (complete) complete, utter

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • (obsolete) Quickly, eagerly, impetuously.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.iii:
  • The seely man seeing him ryde so rancke , / And ayme at him, fell flat to ground for feare [...].
  • * Fairfax
  • That rides so rank and bends his lance so fell.

    Etymology 2

    (etyl) , which is of uncertain origin. Akin to (etyl) . More at (ring).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A row of people or things organized in a grid pattern, often soldiers [the corresponding term for the perpendicular columns in such a pattern is "file"].
  • The front rank''' kneeled to reload while the second '''rank fired over their heads.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1907, author=
  • , title=The Dust of Conflict , chapter=7 citation , passage=Then there was no more cover, for they straggled out, not in ranks but clusters, from among orange trees and tall, flowering shrubs
  • # (chess) one of the eight horizontal lines of squares on a chessboard [the corresponding term for a vertical line is "file"].
  • (music) In a pipe organ, a set of pipes of a certain quality for which each pipe corresponds to one key or pedal.
  • One's position in a list sorted by a shared property such as physical location, population, or quality
  • Based on your test scores, you have a rank of 23.
    The fancy hotel was of the first rank.
  • (class)The level of one's position in a class-based society
  • a level in an organization such as the military
  • Private First Class (PFC) is the lowest rank in the Marines.
    He rose up through the ranks of the company from mailroom clerk to CEO.
  • (taxonomy) a level in a scientific taxonomy system
  • Phylum is the taxonomic rank below kingdom and above class.
  • (linear algebra) Maximal number of linearly independent columns (or rows) of a matrix.
  • The dimensionality of an array (computing) or tensor (mathematics).
  • (chess) one of the eight horizontal lines of squares on a chessboard (i.e., those which run from letter to letter). The analog vertical lines are the files .
  • Derived terms
    * break rank * close ranks * pull rank

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To place abreast, or in a line.
  • To have a ranking.
  • Their defense ranked third in the league.
  • To assign a suitable place in a class or order; to classify.
  • * I. Watts
  • Ranking all things under general and special heads.
  • * Broome
  • Poets were ranked in the class of philosophers.
  • * Dr. H. More
  • Heresy is ranked with idolatry and witchcraft.
  • (US) To take rank of; to outrank.
  • Anagrams

    * * * English intensifiers ----

    prime

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) prime, from (etyl) .

    Adjective

    (-)
  • First in importance, degree, or rank.
  • Our prime concern here is to keep the community safe.
  • First in time, order, or sequence
  • Both the English and French governments established prime meridians in their capitals.
  • * Tennyson
  • prime forests
  • * Milton
  • She was not the prime cause, but I myself.
  • First in excellence, quality, or value.
  • This is a prime location for a bookstore.
  • (mathematics, lay) Having exactly two integral factors: itself and unity (1 in the case of integers).
  • Thirteen is a prime number.
  • (mathematics, technical) Such that if it divides a product, it divides one of the multiplicands.
  • (mathematics) Having its complement closed under multiplication: said only of ideals.
  • Marked or distinguished by the prime symbol.
  • Early; blooming; being in the first stage.
  • * Milton
  • His starry helm, unbuckled, showed him prime / In manhood where youth ended.
  • (obsolete) Lecherous; lustful; lewd.
  • (Shakespeare)
    Synonyms
    * greatest, most important, main, primary, principal, top * excellent, top quality * earliest, first, original * (having no nontrivial factors) indivisible * (dividing a factor of any product it divides) *

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (Christianity, historical) One of the daily offices of prayer of the Western Church, associated with the early morning (typically 6 a.m.).
  • * Spenser
  • Early and late it rung, at evening and at prime .
  • (obsolete) The early morning.
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , I.vi:
  • They all as glad, as birdes of ioyous Prime
  • The earliest stage of something.
  • * Hooker
  • in the very prime of the world
  • * Waller
  • Hope waits upon the flowery prime .
  • The most active, thriving, or successful stage or period.
  • * Eustace
  • cut off in their prime
  • * Dryden
  • the prime of youth
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=April 29, author=Nathan Rabin
  • , title= TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Treehouse of Horror III” (season 4, episode 5; originally aired 10/29/1992) , passage=And it’s daunting because each segment has to tell a full, complete story in something like six minutes while doing justice to revered source material and including the non-stop laughs and genius gags that characterized The Simpsons in its god-like prime .}}
  • * 1965 , (Bob Dylan), (Like a Rolling Stone)
  • Once upon a time you dressed so fine. You threw the bums a dime in your prime , didn’t you?
  • The chief or best individual or part.
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • Give him always of the prime .
  • (music) The first note or tone of a musical scale.
  • (fencing) The first defensive position, with the sword hand held at head height, and the tip of the sword at head height.
  • (algebra, number theory) A prime element of a mathematical structure, particularly a prime number.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Sarah Glaz
  • , title= Ode to Prime Numbers , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’' cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving ' primes .}}
  • (card games) A four-card hand containing one card of each suit in the game of primero; the opposite of a flush in poker.
  • (backgammon) Six consecutive blocks, which prevent the opponent's pieces from passing.
  • The symbol
  • (chemistry, obsolete) Any number expressing the combining weight or equivalent of any particular element; so called because these numbers were respectively reduced to their lowest relative terms on the fixed standard of hydrogen as 1.
  • An inch, as composed of twelve seconds in the duodecimal system.
  • Synonyms
    * bloom, blossom, efflorescence, flower, flush, heyday, peak * (chief or best individual or part) choice, prize, quality, select * prime number (when an integer)
    Derived terms
    (algebra) * cousin prime * primality * prime constellation * prime number * sexy prime * twin prime

    Etymology 2

    Origin uncertain; perhaps related to primage.

    Verb

    (prim)
  • To prepare a mechanism for its main work.
  • You'll have to press this button twice to prime the fuel pump.
  • To apply a coat of primer paint to.
  • I need to prime these handrails before we can apply the finish coat.
  • (obsolete) To be renewed.
  • * Quarles
  • Night's bashful empress, though she often wane, / As oft repeats her darkness, primes again.
  • To serve as priming for the charge of a gun.
  • (of a steam boiler) To work so that foaming occurs from too violent ebullition, which causes water to become mixed with, and be carried along with, the steam that is formed.
  • To apply priming to (a musket or cannon); to apply a primer to (a metallic cartridge).
  • To prepare; to make ready; to instruct beforehand; to coach.
  • to prime a witness
    The boys are primed for mischief.
    (Thackeray)
  • (UK, dialect, obsolete) To trim or prune.
  • to prime trees
  • (math) To mark with a prime mark.
  • Synonyms
    * (to apply a coat of primer paint to) ground, undercoat

    Derived terms

    * primer

    See also

    * prime contract * prime decomposition * prime factorization * prime number * pseudoprime

    References

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