priming

Pluralprimings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of prime.

   The crew spent the morning priming the steel beams against rust.

   Priming the canvas with gesso gives the paint something to grip.

   Note

   The participle carries every verb sense of prime, from priming a pump or a canvas to priming a gun. Most of these senses are transitive, but two are not. A boiler that foams is said to be priming, and the obsolete sense "to be renewed" took no object either. As a gerund it shades into the noun: priming the walls is the action, while a coat of priming is the substance.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A substance applied as a base coat to seal a surface and help later coats of paint or finish adhere.

   A thin layer of priming sealed the porous plaster before the topcoat went on.

   Painters chose an oil-based priming to block stains on the old ceiling.

   Similarprimer, undercoat, sealer

   Note

   Behind the finish sits the layer nobody is meant to see. Thomas Hardy, in Wessex Tales (1888), describes a door whose paint was worn so thin by wind and rain "that the priming and knotting showed through." The base coat surfaces only when the topcoat fails. As a substance it is a mass noun (a coat of priming), while the verb form names the work itself: priming a canvas.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   An implicit memory effect in which exposure to one stimulus shapes how a person responds to a later, related stimulus.

   Researchers used priming to show that an earlier image speeds recognition of a related one.

   Subtle priming from a list of polite words made participants behave more courteously afterward.

   Note

   The memory effect at the center of psychology's use of the word. Its mark is that it works without awareness. A word or image seen earlier makes a related one quicker or more accurate to process, even when the person does not remember the first exposure. Its sentence-structure variety is one specialized case of this positive priming.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The powder or other flammable material used to carry fire to the main gunpowder charge in a firearm.

   He tapped fresh priming into the flintlock's pan before the next shot.

   Damp weather spoiled the priming, and the musket misfired.

   Note

   The flintlock and the muzzle-loader depended on it. A little fine powder in the pan or touch-hole caught the spark first and carried flame to the main charge in the barrel. In a metallic cartridge the same job falls to a primer. The verb covers both cases: one primes a musket or cannon with priming, and a cartridge with a primer.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The process of flushing IV tubing with fluid to clear out air before it is connected to a patient.

   Proper priming of the line removes air bubbles that could harm the patient.

   The technician double-checked the priming before the infusion began.

   Similarflushing

   Note

   A bedside routine before any infusion: the administration set is filled with fluid until every bubble is pushed out, because air delivered into a vein can cause an embolism. Nurses speak of priming the line or priming the tubing. The verb is the same one used for filling a mechanism's chamber before it starts its main work.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   The first time the precursors of antigen-specific helper T cells encounter the particular antigen they are able to recognize.

   Effective priming of helper T cells depends on antigen-presenting cells in the lymph nodes.

   Researchers tracked priming to see how quickly the cells responded to the antigen.

   Note

   Immunologists reserve the word for the opening encounter, when naive helper T cells first meet their specific antigen on antigen-presenting cells. That meeting activates them and sets them on the path to becoming effector and memory cells. Priming is therefore the start of a response rather than the response itself. It usually takes an of-phrase or a modifier: priming of T cells, T-cell priming.

7. 7
   noununcountable

   A cognitive process in which media content temporarily makes certain pieces of knowledge easier to recall.

   Media priming led voters to judge the candidate mainly on the economy.

   Repeated coverage produced priming that pushed the issue to the top of public concern.

   Note

   Communication research borrows the psychologist's memory effect and points it at the news. Coverage that keeps an issue in view makes it easier to call to mind. Audiences then use that issue as the yardstick for judging issues or people, as when voters weigh a candidate on the economy because the economy dominated the headlines. Researchers usually say media priming to keep it apart from the laboratory sense.

8. 8
   noununcountable

   A form of positive priming that makes a person more likely to reuse, or to more quickly process, a sentence with the same structure as one heard before.

   Structural priming caused speakers to echo the grammatical pattern of the question they were asked.

   Experimenters measured priming by counting how often participants repeated the prompted construction.

   Note

   Psycholinguists apply the general memory effect to grammar itself. Hearing a construction makes a speaker likelier to produce it next, or to process a sentence built the same way more quickly. It usually goes by the name structural priming. Experiments measure it by how often participants echo the pattern they were prompted with.

9. 9
   noununcountable

   The effect that an added nutrient has on the rate at which organic matter decomposes.

   Fresh carbon input triggered priming, accelerating the breakdown of older soil organic matter.

   Researchers observed priming when nitrogen was added to the decomposing litter.

   Note

   Soil scientists usually speak of the priming effect. Adding fresh carbon or nitrogen changes how fast the older organic matter already in the soil breaks down. The change can run either way, because the microbes may be stimulated or held back. The word alone does not tell you whether decomposition sped up or slowed down, so careful writing says which.

10. 10
    noununcountable

    A method of preparing seeds for planting by presoaking them in a nanoparticle solution.

    Nanoparticle priming improved how evenly the seeds germinated.

    The lab compared priming against untreated seeds in the same soil.

    Note

    Seed science takes the idea of readying something before its real work and applies it to sowing. Seeds soak in a nanoparticle solution so that they germinate faster and more evenly and grow into sturdier seedlings. It usually travels with a modifier, as in seed priming or nanoparticle priming. Its results are judged against untreated seed grown in the same conditions.

11. 11
    noununcountable

    A harmful fault in a steam locomotive in which boiler water is swept along with the steam into the cylinders.

    Foaming in the boiler caused priming, sending slugs of water into the cylinders.

    The driver eased the throttle to prevent priming on the steep climb.

    Note

    Locomotive crews counted it among their worst running faults. When a boiler foams from too violent boiling, water mixes with the steam and is carried into the cylinders, costing power and risking damage. P. Ransome-Wallis, writing in 1959, names it beside "bad steaming" as a separate cause of delay. The verb is intransitive: a boiler primes.

Showing meanings only. Show all 11