Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Primer

Prim′er (prīm′ẽr), n. One who, or that which, primes; specifically, an instrument or device for priming; esp., a cap, tube, or water containing percussion powder or other compound for igniting a charge of gunpowder.

Prim′er, a. [OF. primer, primier, premier, F. premier. See Premier.] First; original; primary. [Obs.] "The primer English kings." Drayton.

Primer fine (O. Eng. Law), a fine due to the king on the writ or commencement of a suit by fine. Blackstone. — Primer seizin (Feudal Law), the right of the king, when a tenant in capite died seized of a knight's fee, to receive of the heir, if of full age, one year's profits of the land if in possession, and half a year's profits if the land was in reversion expectant on an estate for life; — now abolished. Blackstone.

Prim′er (prĭm′ẽr), n. [Originally, the book read at prime, the first canonical hour. LL. primae liber. See Prime, n., 4.] 1. Originally, a small prayer book for church service, containing the little office of the Virgin Mary; also, a work of elementary religious instruction.

The primer, or office of the Blessed Virgin. Bp. Stillingfleet.

2. A small elementary book for teaching children to read; a reading or spelling book for a beginner.

As he sat in the school at his prymer. Chaucer.

3. (Print.) A kind of type, of which there are two species; one, called long primer, intermediate in size between bourgeois and small pica [see Long primer]; the other, called great primer, larger than pica.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.