- in or connected with the first stages of a course of study
- an elementary English course
- a book for elementary students
- at an elementary level
- I'm taking classes in elementary Italian.
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
- of the most basic kind
- It's an elementary law of economics: the scarcer the commodity, the higher the price.
- How could you make such an elementary mistake?
- I made some rather elementary mistakes.
- very simple and easy
- elementary questions
Word Originlate Middle English (in the sense ‘composed of the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water’): from Latin elementarius, from elementum ‘principle’, translating Greek stoikheion ‘step, component part’. Current senses date from the mid 16th cent.
Check pronunciation:
elementary