# fundamental

Pronunciation: say "fun-duh-MEN-tuhl" /ˌfʌndəˈmɛntəl/

## Adjective

1. Essential and extremely important; central to everything else that follows.
   - Simple: Very important, so that other things depend on it.
   - _A fundamental disagreement about goals split the committee in two._
   - _The reform brought a fundamental change to how schools are funded._
2. Serving as a foundation or base on which other things are built.
   - Simple: Forming the base that other things are built on.
   - _Cell theory is a fundamental principle on which modern biology rests._
   - _These fundamental assumptions form the groundwork for the entire model._

## Noun

3. A basic truth, concept, principle, rule, or law that serves as a building block for more complex ideas.
   - Simple: A basic truth or rule that bigger ideas are built from.
   - _This principle is a fundamental from which the entire theory is derived._
   - _Every beginner must master a few fundamentals before tackling complex problems._
4. A set of essential component ideas grouped together to form the foundational basis of a complex idea.
   - Simple: A group of basic ideas that together form the base of a bigger 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._
5. In physics and signal processing, the lowest of the frequencies that make up a periodic waveform.
   - Simple: The lowest frequency in a repeating wave.
   - _The oscilloscope showed the fundamental clearly beneath a stack of harmonics._
   - _By filtering out the higher partials, they isolated the fundamental of the signal._
6. In music and acoustics, the partial of lowest frequency among those that make up a complex tone.
   - Simple: The lowest tone inside a musical sound.
   - _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._

## Origin

From Late Latin fundamentālis, from Latin fundamentum ("foundation"), which comes from fundō ("to lay the foundation of something, to found") and ultimately from fundus ("bottom").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/fundamental (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).