[syn: original, archetype, pilot]
ADJECTIVE (4)
1. preceding all others in time or being as first made or performed;
- Example: "the original inhabitants of the Americas"
- Example: "the book still has its original binding"
- Example: "restored the house to its original condition"
- Example: "the original performance of the opera"
- Example: "the original cast"
- Example: "retracted his original statement"
2. (of e.g. information) not secondhand or by way of something intermediary;
- Example: "his work is based on only original, not secondary, sources"
3. being or productive of something fresh and unusual; or being as first made or thought of;
- Example: "a truly original approach"
- Example: "with original music"
- Example: "an original mind"
4. not derived or copied or translated from something else;
- Example: "the play is original not an adaptation";
- Example: "he kept the original copy and gave her only a xerox"
- Example: "the translation misses much of the subtlety of the original French"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Original \O*rig"i*nal\, n. [Cf. F. original.]
[1913 Webster]
1. Origin; commencement; source.
[1913 Webster]
It hath it original from much grief. --Shak.
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And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim. --Addison.
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2. That which precedes all others of its class; archetype;
first copy; hence, an original work of art, manuscript,
text, and the like, as distinguished from a copy,
translation, etc.
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The Scriptures may be now read in their own
original. --Milton.
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3. An original thinker or writer; an originator. [R.]
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Men who are bad at copying, yet are good originals.
--C. G.
Leland.
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4. A person of marked eccentricity. [Colloq.]
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5. (Zool. & Bot.) The natural or wild species from which a
domesticated or cultivated variety has been derived; as,
the wolf is thought by some to be the original of the dog,
the blackthorn the original of the plum.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Original \O*rig"i*nal\, a. [F. original, L. originalis.]
[1913 Webster]
1. Pertaining to the origin or beginning; preceding all
others; first in order; primitive; primary; pristine; as,
the original state of man; the original laws of a country;
the original inventor of a process.
[1913 Webster]
His form had yet not lost
All her original brightness. --Milton.
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2. Not copied, imitated, or translated; new; fresh; genuine;
as, an original thought; an original process; the original
text of Scripture.
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3. Having the power to suggest new thoughts or combinations
of thought; inventive; as, an original genius.
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4. Before unused or unknown; new; as, a book full of original
matter.
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Original sin (Theol.), the first sin of Adam, as related to
its consequences to his descendants of the human race; --
called also total depravity. See Calvinism.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
original
adj 1: preceding all others in time or being as first made or
performed; "the original inhabitants of the Americas";
"the book still has its original binding"; "restored the
house to its original condition"; "the original
performance of the opera"; "the original cast";
"retracted his original statement"
2: (of e.g. information) not secondhand or by way of something
intermediary; "his work is based on only original, not
secondary, sources"
3: being or productive of something fresh and unusual; or being
as first made or thought of; "a truly original approach";
"with original music"; "an original mind" [ant: unoriginal]
4: not derived or copied or translated from something else; "the
play is original; not an adaptation"; "he kept the original
copy and gave her only a xerox"; "the translation misses much
of the subtlety of the original French"
n 1: an original creation (i.e., an audio recording) from which
copies can be made [syn: master, master copy,
original]
2: something that serves as a model or a basis for making
copies; "this painting is a copy of the original" [syn:
original, archetype, pilot]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
413 Moby Thesaurus words for "original":
Bohemian, ab ovo, abecedarian, aboriginal, actual, advanced, alien,
antenatal, antetype, antitype, archetypal, archetype, article,
authentic, autochthonous, autograph, avant-garde, basal, basic,
basilar, beat, beatnik, beginning, biotype, bona fide, brainchild,
breakaway, budding, callow, candid, card, card-carrying, case,
central, character, classic example, commencement, composition,
computer printout, conception, conceptive, conceptual, constituent,
constitutive, copy, crackpot, crank, creative, criterion, crucial,
demiurgic, derivation, deviant, dewy, different, dinkum, dissenter,
document, draft, dropout, duck, earliest, eccentric,
edited version, elemental, elementary, embryonic, endemic,
engrossment, epitome, esemplastic, essay, essential, ever-new,
evergreen, exploratory, extra, fair copy, fanatic, far out, fecund,
fertile, fetal, fiction, final draft, finished version, first,
first draft, firsthand, fledgling, flimsy, flower child,
following the letter, forerunner, formative, foundational, freak,
free and easy, fresh, fringy, fugleman, fugler, fundamental,
generative, genesis, genetic, genotype, genuine, germinal,
gestatory, good, grass roots, green, gut, head, held back,
held in reserve, held out, heretic, heretical, hermit, heterodox,
hippie, hobo, holograph, homebred, homegrown, honest,
honest-to-God, ideational, ideative, imaginative, imitatee,
immature, in abeyance, in embryo, in hand, in its infancy, in ovo,
in the bud, inartificial, inaugural, inception, inceptive,
inchoate, inchoative, incipient, incunabular, indigenous,
individualist, infant, infantile, informal, ingenious, initial,
initiative, initiatory, innovation, innovational, innovative,
inspired, intact, introducer, introductory, inventive, inventor,
kinky, kook, lawful, lead, legitimate, letter, lifelike,
literae scriptae, literal, literary artefact, literary production,
literature, lone wolf, loner, lucubration, maiden, maidenly,
manuscript, master, material, matter, maverick, meshuggenah, mint,
mirror, misfit, model, mother, nascent, natal, native, native-born,
natural, naturalistic, neoteric, nestling, new, new departure,
nonconformist, nonfiction, nonjuror, not cricket, not done,
not kosher, notional, novel, nut, odd fellow, oddball, oddity,
of the essence, offbeat, opus, origin, origination, originative,
originator, outsider, paper, paradigm, parchment, pariah,
parturient, pattern, penscript, piece, piece of writing,
pilot model, pioneer, play, poem, postnatal, precedent, preceding,
precursor, pregnant, preliminary, prenatal, primal, primary, prime,
primeval, primitive, primogenial, primordial, printed matter,
printout, pristine, procreative, production, productive, prolific,
protogenic, prototypal, prototype, prototypical, provenience, pure,
put aside, put by, queer duck, queer fish, queer specimen, quiz,
radical, radix, rara avis, raw, reading matter, real, realistic,
recension, representative, reproduction, reserve, revolutionary,
rightful, rise, root, rudimental, rudimentary, rule, saved, screed,
screwball, scrip, script, scrive, scroll, second draft, sectarian,
sectary, seminal, sempervirent, shaping, simon-pure, simple,
sincere, solitary, source, spare, spook, standard, starting, stem,
sterling, stock, stored, strange, substantial, substantive,
sure-enough, suspended, swinger, taproot, teeming,
the written word, to spare, tramp, transcript, transcription, true,
true to life, true to nature, true to reality, type, type species,
type specimen, typescript, ugly duckling, unadulterated,
unaffected, unapplied, unassumed, unassuming, unbeaten, uncolored,
uncommon, unconcocted, unconformist, unconsumed, unconventional,
uncopied, uncounterfeited, underived, underlying, undeveloped,
undisguised, undisguising, undistorted, unemployed, unexaggerated,
unexercised, unexpended, unfabricated, unfamiliar, unfanciful,
unfashionable, unfeigned, unfeigning, unfictitious, unflattering,
unfledged, unhandled, unheard-of, unimagined, unimitated,
uninvented, unique, unorthodox, unprecedented, unpretended,
unpretending, unqualified, unromantic, unsimulated, unspecious,
unspent, unsynthetic, untapped, untouched, untried, untrodden,
unused, unusual, unutilized, unvarnished, ur, urtext, verbal,
verbatim, veridical, verisimilar, vernacular, vernal, version,
virgin, virginal, visioned, waived, way out, word-for-word, work,
writing, yippie, young, zealot
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):
ORIGINAL, contracts, practice, evidence. An authentic instrument of
something, and which is to serve as a model or example to be copied or
imitated. It also means first, or not deriving any authority from any other
source as, original jurisdiction, original writ, original bill, and the
like.
2. Originals are single or duplicate. Single, when there is but one;
duplicate, when there are two. In the case of printed documents, all the
impressions are originals, or in the nature of duplicate originals, and any
copy will be primary evidence. Watson's Case, 2 Stark. R. 130; sed vide 14
Serg.& Rawle, 200; 2 Bouv. Inst. n. 2001.
3. When an original document is not evidence at common law, and a copy
of such original is made evidence by an act of the legislature, the original
is not, therefore, made admissible evidence by implication. 2 Camp. R. 121,