primary qualities

pl. Qualities which are original and inseparable from the bodies in which they are found. 80 "These I call original or primary qualities lidity, extension, figure, motion, or rest, and number."Locke: Hum. Underst ., bk. ii. ch. viii. § 9. primary-quills, s. pl. [PRIMARY, II. 2.] primary-rocks, s. pl. Geol .: A term formerly including all the crystalline and non-fo iliferous rocks which were deposited, it was believed, anterior to the appearance of life upon the earth. At first the term comprehended rocks afterward called Plutonic and Metamorphic (q. v.). Then it was limited to the latter; now applied to Palæozoic rocks. (HYPOGENE, CRYSTALLINE, 5.]