fundamental, a. and n.
(fʌndəˈmɛntəl)
[ad. mod.L. fundāmentālis, f. fundāmentum: see fundament and -al1. Cf. F. fondamental.]
A. adj.
† 1. a. Of or pertaining to the foundation or base of a building. Obs.
| 1611 Coryat Crudities 503 Conrade..placed the first fundamentall stone with his owne handes. 1632 Lithgow Trav. iii. 123 The fundamentall walls yet extant. c 1650 Z. Boyd in Zion's Flowers (1855) Introd. 50 Christ the fundamental stone. 1769 Middlesex Jrnl. 12–14 Sept. 2/2 Near 300l. expended in fundamental repairs [of a tavern]. |
b. Having a foundation, fixed, not temporary. Obs. rare—1.
| 1633 T. Adams Exp. 2 Peter i. 18 ‘Let us build here three tabernacles’, movable tilts? No; fundamental and constant habitations. |
2. Of or pertaining to the foundation or ground-work, going to the root of the matter.
| c 1449 Pecock Repr. iii. xix. 413 Aftir sure fundamental encerche. 1658 A. Fox Wurtz' Surg. i. vi. 25 The true signs, whereby you may have a fundamental information of a wounds condition. 1659 Pearson Creed (1839) 5 If there be any fundamental distinction in the authority of the testimony. 1781 J. Moore View Soc. It. (1790) I. viii. 80 Before they could submit to such a fundamental change. 1860 Tyndall Glac. ii. i. 227 The fundamental analogy of sound and light is thus before us. 1868 M. Pattison Academ. Org. v. 120 The consideration involves the fundamental question of what is a University. |
3. a. Serving as the foundation or base on which something is built. Chiefly and now exclusively in immaterial applications. Hence, forming an essential or indispensable part of a system, institution, etc. Const. to (rarely of).
| 1601 Shakes. All's Well iii. i. 2 Now haue you heard The fundamentall reasons of this warre. 1641 Vind. Smectymnuus iv. 56 Fundamentall laws are not subject to alteration. 1649 W. Blithe Eng. Improv. Impr. (1653) 223 The Sheath and plough-head, which is the materiall fundamentall peece in the Plough, must be made of heart of Oak. 1650 Fuller Pisgah ii. xi. 235 Samson applied himself to the two pillars most fundamentall to the roof of Dagons Temple. a 1705 Howe in Spurgeon Treas. Dav. Ps. lxxxix. 2 Former mercies are fundamental to later ones. 1718 Prior Power 217 Their ills all built on life, that fundamental ill. 1771 Junius Lett. lix. 304 The fundamental principles of christianity may still be preserved. 1785 Reid Int. Powers 608 The fundamental rules of poetry and music and painting, and dramatic action, and eloquence, have always been the same, and will be to the end of the world. 1835 J. Harris Gt. Teacher (1837) 87 The existence of the Deity is a truth fundamental of every other. 1863 Geo. Eliot Romola iii. xx, The ideas of strict law and order were fundamental to all his political teaching. 1876 Mozley Univ. Serm. iv. (1877) 88 How low down in a man sometimes..lies the fundamental motive which sways his life! |
b. Primary, original; from which others are derived.
| c 1449 Pecock Repr. iii. xii. 350 Noon fundamental cronicler or Storier writith therof saue Girald. 1868 Carpenter in Sci. Opin. 6 Jan. 174/2 Of the most varied shapes, apparently referrible to the Astrorhiza limicola as their fundamental type. 1874 Sayce Compar. Philol. vii. 262 In the noun the nominative was regarded as the fundamental case. 1879 tr. Semper's Anim. Life 11 To show..how such a change in the organ might be effected side by side with permanence of the fundamental form. 1881 Westcott & Hort Grk. N.T. Introd. §15 The fundamental editions were those of Erasmus..and of Stunica. |
c. esp. Math. and Cryst.
| 1570 Dee Math. Pref. 30 Diuide the side of your Fundamentall Cube into so many æquall partes. 1669 Sturmy Mariner's Mag. ii. 47 Therefore we will demonstrate the fundamental Diagram of the Mathematical Scale. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Fundamental Diagram, a Projection of the Sphere in a Plane &c. 1721–92 in Bailey. 1805–17 R. Jameson Char. Min. (ed. 3) 120 A fundamental figure is said to be acuminated when [etc.]. 1875 Everett C.G.S. Syst. Units ii. 7 The quantities commonly selected to serve as the fundamental units are—a definite length, a definite mass, a definite interval of time. 1882 Minchin Unipl. Kinemat. 235 In virtue of the fundamental equations (2) of No. 2, we have [etc.]. 1888 Lockwood's Dict. Mech. Engin., Fundamental Circle or Base Circle, a curve which is rolled over by a generating circle in the production of cycloidal curves. 1893 Forsyth Th. Functions 591 There is considerable freedom of choice of an initial region of reference, which may be called a fundamental region. Ibid. 603 It is a circle being the inverse of a line; it is unaltered by the substitutions of the new group, and it is therefore called the fundamental circle of this group. |
4. Of strata: Lying at the bottom. fundamental complex (see quot. 1961).
| 1799 Kirwan Geol. Ess. 42 Mr. Eversman..tells us that the fundamental rock of Scotland is a mass of the granitic kind. 1830 Lyell Princ. Geol. I. 202 The fundamental rock..is a black slate. 1861 W. Fairbairn Addr. Brit. Assoc., He has proved the existence of a fundamental gneiss, on which all the other rocks repose. 1893 A. Geikie Text-bk. Geol. (ed. 3) II. vi. i. 715 The pre-Cambrian rocks..may be divided into two great series. At the base lies a vast mass of gneisses, schists, and eruptive rocks, which, known as the ‘Fundamental Complex’, is regarded as the oldest of the whole. 1910 Encycl. Brit. II. 361/1 The so-called ‘fundamental complex’, an assemblage of acid, basic and intermediate irruptive rocks, associated together in a complex of extraordinary intricacy. 1961 L. D. Stamp Gloss. Geogr. Terms 202/2 Fundamental complex, in geology the rocks of the ‘original’ crust of the earth formerly applied to the great areas of pre-Cambrian crystalline rocks. It is still used although it is now recognized that probably no part represents the ‘original’ crust of the earth. |
5. Biol. and Bot. (See quots.)
| 1856 Henslow Dict. Bot. Terms, Fundamental-organs, the nutritive organs absolutely essential to the existence of the individual. 1866 Treas. Bot., Fundamental, constituting the essential part of anything; in a plant, the axis and its appendages. 1882 Vines Sachs' Bot. 155 Epidermal and fundamental tissues. 1885 Syd. Soc. Lex., Fundamental organs, term applied by von Baer to the primary structures which directly issue from the blastoderm in the form of tubes, and from which the permanent organs or structures are developed. 1894 Gould Illustr. Dict. Med., etc., Fundamental Tissue, in biology, unspecialized parenchyma; those tissues of a plant through which the fibro-vascular bundles are distributed. |
6. Mus. Applied to the lowest note of a chord, considered as the foundation or ‘root’ of it; also to the tone produced by the vibration of the whole of a sonorous body, as distinguished from the higher tones or harmonics produced by that of its parts.
fundamental bass, a low note, or series of low notes, forming the root or roots of a chord or succession of chords. fundamental chord, an old name for the common chord; now extended to any chord formed of harmonics of the fundamental tone.
| 1752 tr. Rameau's Treat. Mus. ii. 9 Of the Fundamental Bass. Ibid. x. 28 Any one of the Notes contained in the fundamental Chords. 1825 Danneley Encycl. Mus., Fundamental Movement, progression or movement of that species of bass. Ibid., Fundamental Sound, the gravest sound or generator. 1828 Busby Mus. Man., Fundamental Bass, that bass on which the superincumbent harmony is founded; or of which the superior parts of the accompanying chord constitute the third, fifth, and eighth. Ibid., Fundamental Chord, a chord consisting of the third, fifth and eighth, of the fundamental bass. 1831 Brewster Nat. Magic viii. (1833) 181 This sound is called the fundamental sound of the string. 1876 tr. Blaserna's Sound i. 18 The note is the lowest that the pipe can give, for which reason it is called the fundamental note of the pipe. 1876 Stainer & Barrett Dict. Mus. T., Fundamental tones, the tones from which harmonics are generated. 1889 E. Prout Harmony iii. §61 Our ‘fundamental chord’—that is, a chord composed of the harmonics of its fundamental tone, or generator. Ibid. ix. §197 We here meet..with a ‘fundamental discord’. |
¶ 7. jocularly. Of or pertaining to the fundament or ‘seat’, posterior.
| 1767 A. Campbell Lexiph. (1774) 65, I lingered behind, detained by my fundamental malady. 1828 Blackw. Mag. XXIV. 184 He fixes his fundamental feature upon the outer edge of a chair. |
B. n.
1. a. A leading or primary principle, rule, law, or article, which serves as the groundwork of a system; an essential part. Chiefly in pl.; the sing. is obs. or arch.
| 1637 Crt. & Times Chas. I (1848) II. 263 They have composed a symbol of fundamentals, which both the Lutherans and Calvinists do hold without interfering one with another. 1641 Vind. Smectymnuus iv. 60 How then is Episcopacie one of the fundamentals of the kingdome? 1650 H. Brooke Conserv. Health 24 A Fundamentall in Physic. a 1652 J. Smith Sel. Disc. vi. v. (1821) 228 Relying upon this known fundamental, viz. That there is no prophecy revealed but by one of these two ways. 1704 Nelson Fest. & Fasts vii. (1739) 540 The same Apostle mentions as a Fundamental, not only..Baptism but also the laying on of Hands. 1862 Merivale Rom. Emp. (1865) IV. xxxix. 373 They permitted little deviation..from these great fundamentals. 1864 Burton Scot Abr. I. i. 16 There is an odd tenacity of life in the fundamentals of..legends. 1878 Morley Vauvenargues 11 Very faint and doubtful as to even the fundamentals—God, immortality, and the like. |
b. pl. Fundamental requisites. ? nonce-use.
| 1864 E. Burritt Walk fr. Lond. to John o' Groats 378 Bread, bacon, and butter. Their stock of these fundamentals was exhausted. |
2. Mus. Short for fundamental tone or note: see A. 6. (Formerly = key-note.)
| 1727–41 Chambers Cycl., Fundamental, in music, denotes the principal note of a song or composition, to which all the rest are in some measure adapted, and by which they are swayed. 1825 Danneley Encycl. Mus., Fundamental, the principal note or root of a harmony, concordant or discordant. |
Hence fundaˈmentalness.
| 1727 in Bailey vol. II. |