primitive

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
primitive/ˈprɪmətɪv/

▶adjective

• 1 relating to or denoting the earliest times in history or stages in evolution or development.

  ■ of or denoting a preliterate, non-industrial society of simple organization.

  ■ Biology undeveloped; rudimentary.

• 2 offering an extremely basic level of comfort, convenience, or efficiency.

• 3 (of behaviour or emotion) instinctive and unreasoning.

• 4 of or denoting a deliberately simple and direct artistic style.

▶noun

• 1 a person belonging to a primitive society.

• 2 a pre-Renaissance painter, or one employing a primitive style.

• 3 technical a word, expression, etc. from which others are derived.

  ■ Computing any of a set of basic geometric shapes generated in computer graphics.

– derivatives
primitively adverb,
primitiveness noun.

– origin ME: from OFr. primitif, -ive, from L. primitivus ‘first of its kind’, from primus ‘first’.