fundamental

Pluralfundamentals

1. 1
   adjective

   Essential and extremely important; central to everything else that follows.

   A fundamental disagreement about goals split the committee in two.

   The reform brought a fundamental change to how schools are funded.

   Similaressential, elementary

   Oppositeminor, superficial, trivial, peripheral

   Note

   Here the foundation has become a measure of importance: what is fundamental matters because everything else rests on it, as the literal 'foundation' sense still shows. It pairs with abstract nouns (a fundamental truth, principle, law or axiom) and takes to when naming who depends on it: a need for belonging is fundamental to humans. Elementary overlaps, but it suggests the simple and first-learned; fundamental stresses what cannot be taken away.

2. 2
   adjective

   Serving as a foundation or base on which other things are built.

   Cell theory is a fundamental principle on which modern biology rests.

   These fundamental assumptions form the groundwork for the entire model.

   Similarbasic, foundational, underlying, core, elementary

   Oppositesecondary, derivative

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A basic truth, concept, principle, rule, or law that serves as a building block for more complex ideas.

   This principle is a fundamental from which the entire theory is derived.

   Every beginner must master a few fundamentals before tackling complex problems.

   Similarprinciple, essential, basic, rudiment

   Note

   A single footing in a structure of ideas: the noun keeps the picture of its source, Late Latin fundamentālis, from Latin fundamentum, "foundation," and ultimately fundus, "bottom." In the singular it counts one such footing, a principle or law that a larger idea is built on. It stands beside the plural fundamentals, which gathers such pieces into a set.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A set of essential component ideas grouped together to form the foundational basis of a complex idea.

   Supply and demand are among the fundamentals of economics, each bundling several linked principles.

   Coaches drill the fundamentals so players can act on them without thinking.

   Similarbasics, essentials, rudiments, principles, foundations

   Note

   The plural gathers the building blocks into a set and usually takes of: the fundamentals of linear algebra. John Locke uses it for the core beliefs a person holds, asking for a "compleat Catalogue" of someone's Fundamentals. Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1928 shows one item drawn from such a set: personal leadership as "a fundamental of successful government."

5. 5
   nouncountable

   In physics and signal processing, the lowest of the frequencies that make up a periodic waveform.

   The oscilloscope showed the fundamental clearly beneath a stack of harmonics.

   By filtering out the higher partials, they isolated the fundamental of the signal.

   Note

   Physics treats this frequency as the base of a series. Every higher-frequency component in a periodic signal is a whole-number multiple of it, and those multiples are its harmonics, so the fundamental and its harmonics are named together. Filtering away everything above it isolates the fundamental. The same idea, heard rather than measured, becomes the musical fundamental.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   In music and acoustics, the partial of lowest frequency among those that make up a complex tone.

   On a cello, the fundamental gives the note its pitch while the overtones color it.

   Singers can strengthen the fundamental by adjusting how they shape each vowel.

   Note

   Here the lowest component becomes something a listener hears. The fundamental generally sets the pitch a note is perceived to have. The relative strengths of the partials above it shape the timbre, which is why a cello and a voice sounding the same note still sound different. Those upper partials are often called overtones, as distinct from the fundamental beneath them.

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