Dictionary

primevalness en · NOUN

Etymology

From primeval + -ness.

Meanings

1. (uncountable) The quality of being primeval.
   • Then I sat in that little nook—leaving the door open so I could watch the shadows—thinking about the primevalness of my life. 1995, Jo Ray McCuen, Readings for Writers, Harcourt Brace College Publishers, →ISBN, page 361:
   • Let any number of new hideous apes be found in Africa, and hailed as a more remote progenitor by enlightened naturalists, I will be satisfied to end my genealogy at the first of the line endowed with reason, instead of pursuing it into the primevalness of ferocity. 1861, “Correspondence. Physical and Moral Sciences in Relation to Religion.”, in The Rambler, volume VI, page 389:
   • PRIME´VALNESS } (of primævalus, L. and neſs) the being of the firſt age. [1760, The New Universal Etymological English Dictionary: […], 5th edition, London: […] W. Johnston:
   • This piece of woodland was delightful in its seeming primevalness. 1872, E. Marlitt, “The Little Princess of the Heath”, in The Ladies’ Repository, a Universalist Monthly Magazine for the Home Circle, volume XLVIII, Boston, Mass.: […] the Universalist Publishing House, page 439:
   • He was traversing a rude forest pathway; bushes and half-decayed stumps lined the track, towering, mossy trees hung solemn and shadowy above him; there was rudeness, savageness, primevalness around him. 1856, Daniel Shepherd, “The War Path”, in Saratoga. A Story of 1787., New York, N.Y.: W. P. Fetridge & Co., […]. Boston, Mass.: Williams & Co., […], page 369:

Forms

Synonyms

primevality