How to Use primal in a Sentence

primal

adjective
  • And at the end of the chorus, that whole primal sing-yell thing came out.
    Chris Willman, Variety, 18 Sep. 2022
  • The sense of being at once hunter and prey feels primal.
    Simon Parkin, The New Yorker, 17 Jan. 2023
  • Lewis unleashed the saints and demons of primal rock ‘n’ roll.
    Richard Corliss, Time, 28 Oct. 2022
  • And to me, that was like such a primal description of him.
    Alex Ritman, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Nov. 2022
  • Full moons are primal, to begin with, and Aries is ruled by Mars, the horny god of war.
    Sophie Saint Thomas, Allure, 25 Apr. 2022
  • On the way back to the city, Tiffan yelped in a primal scream—a cicada was on her knee.
    Ross Kenneth Urken, Scientific American, 14 June 2021
  • That’s when the crowd erupted while Woods pumped his fists and let out a primal scream.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 June 2021
  • But there is something primal about the way humans look for a light in the dark.
    Susanna Schrobsdorff, Time, 11 Sep. 2021
  • When the win was secure, head coach Ben Brinkman turned to his bench and let out a primal scream.
    Don Norcross, San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 Jan. 2024
  • And yet, in the midst of futile attempts to grind out yardage on the ground, the game’s primal Cro-Magnon essence was fun to watch.
    Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 11 Sep. 2022
  • When the ball found the bottom of the net, DeRozan unleashed a primal scream of pure catharsis.
    Jeff McDonald, San Antonio Express-News, 12 Apr. 2021
  • Cawley let out a primal scream and dropped to the floor, sobbing.
    Anna Almendrala, Los Angeles Times, 11 Mar. 2021
  • Blue Origin’s is slow and steady, while SpaceX’s is more of a primal scream.
    Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 28 Apr. 2021
  • It’s both light and rich, with lime and salt but some oddly primal taste.
    Eve Conant, Travel, 30 Dec. 2020
  • And where the survivors—many of them, anyway—would go primal.
    John Anderson, WSJ, 15 Dec. 2020
  • The whole movie, for me, is a bit of a primal scream against the carnival-like idiocy of the past six years.
    David Sims, The Atlantic, 26 Dec. 2022
  • The Lakers center then let out a primal yell, flexed and mean-mugged.
    Broderick Turner Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 27 Apr. 2021
  • The primal feel of the knife has unleashed something in Shauna.
    Erin Qualey, Los Angeles Times, 9 Jan. 2022
  • The primal force of the fire draws pilgrims to the lips of the craters, and has drawn Weston around the world in chase of that initial eruption.
    Nina MacLaughlin, BostonGlobe.com, 13 July 2023
  • As a primal element of power, land has flowed from the weak to the strong for centuries.
    Patrik Jonsson, The Christian Science Monitor, 3 Nov. 2023
  • And the question of whether our obsession with it is as primal as thirst.
    John Anderson, WSJ, 28 June 2022
  • There’s something primal to having the controller in your hand and being in the world.
    Todd Martensgame Critic, Los Angeles Times, 15 Jan. 2023
  • The Children on the Hill takes us on a breathless journey to face the primal fears that lurk within us all.
    Sarah Yang, Sunset Magazine, 23 Oct. 2023
  • But the deeper throughline of The Stones and Brian Jones involves the primal wound of a prodigal son.
    Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Nov. 2023
  • These fish are aged in giant primal cuts with the bones intact.
    Joey Skladany, Southern Living, 30 July 2024
  • Could the primal majesty of the area still be experienced?
    Emily Pennington, Outside Online, 18 Nov. 2020
  • This is a primal scream of a movie, as the pieces above and a number of other Don’t Look Up reviews make clear.
    Andy Meek, BGR, 27 Dec. 2021
  • In this story two primal beings, T’ala’as and Lilu, each sire a child.
    BostonGlobe.com, 5 May 2021
  • Anyone who has ever been in mortal danger or in the grips of primal grief will recognize the error of Rousseau’s claim that knowledge of death and its terrors moves us away from the animal condition.
    Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2024
  • Driven by this primal curiosity as much as by duty and love, the man eventually comes face-to-face with her abductor (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) and follows him down a rabbit hole that leads to the film's grim punchline of an ending.
    Keith Staskiewicz, EW.com, 31 Oct. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'primal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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