Fundamental

a. and sb. [ad. mod.L. fundāmentālis, f. fundāmentum: see FUNDAMENT and -AL. Cf. F. fondamental.]

  A.  adj.

  † 1.  Of or pertaining to the foundation or base of a building. Obs.

1611.  Coryat, Crudities, 503. This Church was founded about the yeare 1030. by the Emperour Conrade the second surnamed Salicus. Who vpon the twelfth day of Iulie the same yeare placed the first fundamentall stone with his owne handes.

1632.  Lithgow, Trav., III. 123. The fundamentall walls yet extant.

c. 1620.  Z. Boyd, Zion’s Flowers (1855), Introduction, 50. If I build upon Christ the fundamental stone, the Pearles and precious stones of Christe’s passions, I shall get a reward.

1769.  Middlesex Jrnl., 12–14 Sept., 2/2. Near 300l. expended in fundamental repairs [of a tavern].

  † b.  Having a foundation, fixed, not temporary. Obs. rare^–1.

1633.  T. Adams, Exp. 2 Peter i. 18. ‘Let us build here three tabernacles,’ movable tilts? No; fundamental and constant habitations.

  2.  Of or pertaining to the foundation or groundwork, going to the root of the matter.

c. 1449.  Pecock, Repr., III. xix. 413. Aftir sure fundamental encerche.

1658.  A. Fox, trans. Wurtz’ Surg., I. vi. 25. These are the true signs, whereby you may have a fundamental information of a wounds condition.

1659.  Pearson, Creed, i. 6. If there be any fundamentall distinction in the Authority of the Testimony, it will cause the like difference in the Assent.

1781.  J. Moore, View Soc. It. (1790), I. viii. 80. Before they could submit to such a fundamental change.

1860.  Tyndall, Glac., II. i. 227. The fundamental analogy of sound and light is thus before us.

1868.  M. Pattison, Academ. Org., v. 120. It involves the fundamental question of what is a University?

  3.  Serving as the foundation or base on which something is built. Chiefly and now exclusively in immaterial applications. Hence, forming an essential or indispensable part of a system, institution, etc. Const. to (rarely of).

1601.  Shaks., All’s Well that ends Well, III. i. 2.

1641.  ‘Smectymnuus,’ Vind. Answ., iv. 56. Though laws are repealable, yet fundamentall laws are not subject to alteration upon personall abuses.

1649.  Blithe, Eng. Improv. Impr. (1652), 221. The wood, especially of the Sheath and Plough-head, which is the materiall fundamentall peeces in the Plough, must be made of heart of Oak.

1650.  Fuller, A Pisgah-sight of Palestine, II. xi. 235. Samson applied himself to the two pillars most fundamentall to the roof of Dagons Temple, and by the strength of his armes and prayers, pulling them down, killed and died together.

a. 1705.  Howe, in Spurgeon, Treat. Dav. Ps. lxxxix. 2. Former mercies are fundamental to later ones.

1718.  Prior, Power, 217. Their ills all built on life, that fundamental ill.

1771.  Junius Lett., lix. 304. The fundamental principles of Christianity may still be preserved.

1785.  Reid, Int. Powers, VI. vi. 608. The fundamental rules of poetry and music and painting, and dramatic action and eloquence, have been always the same, and will be to the end of the world.

1835.  J. Harris, Gt. Teacher (1837), 87. The existence of the Deity is a truth fundamental of every other.

1863.  Geo. Eliot, Romola, III. xx. The ideas of strict law and order were fundamental to all his political teaching.

1876.  Mozley, Univ. Serm., iv. (1877), 88. How low down in a man sometimes (not always) lies the fundamental motive which sways his life!

  b.  Primary, original; from which others are derived.

c. 1449.  Pecock, Repr., III. xii. 350. Noon fundamental cronicler or Storier writith therof saue Girald.

1868.  Carpenter, in Sci. Opin., 6 Jan., 174/2. Of the most varied shapes, apparently referrible to the Astrorhiza limicola as their fundamental type.

1874.  Sayce, Compar. Philol., vii. 262. In the noun, the nominative was regarded as the fundamental case.

1879.  trans. Semper’s Anim. Life, 11. To show … how such a change in the organ might be effected side by side with permanence of the fundamental form.

1881.  Westcott & Hort, Grk. N. T., Introd. § 15. The fundamental editions were those of Erasmus … and of Stunica.

  c.  esp. Math. and Cryst.

1570.  Dee, Math. Pref., 30. By numbers: as, if you diuide the side of your Fundamentall Cube into so many aequall partes, as it is capable of, conueniently, with your ease, and precisenes of the diuision.

1669.  Sturmy, Mariner’s Mag., II. 47. Therefore we will demonstrate the fundamental Diagram of the Mathematical Scale, that all Mariners may understand (that have not the knowledge already) the making of them, which is a most commendable Vertue in an expert Mariner.

1706.  Phillips (ed. Kersey), Fundamental Diagram, a Projection of the Sphere in a Plane, &c.

1721–92.  in Bailey.

1805–17.  R. Jameson, Char. Min. (ed. 3), 120. A fundamental figure is said to be acuminated when, in place of its angles or terminal planes, we find at least three planes which converge into a point, and sometimes, but more rarely, terminate in an edge.

1875.  Everett, C. G. S. Syst. Units, ii. 7. The quantities commonly selected to serve as the fundamental units are—a definite length, a definite mass, a definite interval of time.

1882.  Minchin, Unipl. Kinemat., 235. In virtue of the fundamental equations (2) of No. 2, we have [etc.].

1888.  Lockwood’s Dict. Terms Mech. Engin., Fundamental Circle or Base Circle, a curve which is rolled over by a generating circle in the production of cycloidal curves.

1893.  A. R. Forsyth, Theory of Functions, 591. There is considerable freedom of choice of an initial region of reference, which may be called a fundamental region. Ibid., 603. It is a circle, being the inverse of a line; it is unaltered by the substitutions of the new group, and it is therefore called the fundamental circle of this group.

  4.  Of strata: Lying at the bottom.

1799.  Kirwan, Geol. Ess., 42. Mr. Eversman of Berlin, who resided some years in Scotland, tells us that the fundamental rock (Grund gebirge) of Scotland is a mass of the granitic kind.

1830.  Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 202. The fundamental rock … is a black slate.

1861.  W. Fairbairn, Addr. Brit. Assoc. He has proved the existence of a fundamental gneiss, on which all the other rocks repose.

  5.  Biol. and Bot. (See quots.)

1856.  Henslow, Dict. Bot. Terms, Fundamental-organs, the nutritive organs absolutely essential to the existence of the individual.

1866.  Trust. Bot., Fundamental, constituting the essential part of anything; in a plant, the axis and its appendages.

1882.  Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 155. Epidermal and fundamental tissues.

1885.  Syd. Soc. Lex., Fundamental organs, term applied by von Baer to the primary structures which directly issue from the blastoderm in the form of tubes, and from which the permanent organs or structures are developed.

1894.  Gould, Illustr. Dict. Med., etc., Fundamental Tissue, in biology, unspecialized parenchyma; those tissues of a plant through which the fibro-vascular bundles are distributed.

  6.  Mus. Applied to the lowest note of a chord, considered as the foundation or ‘root’ of it; also to the tone produced by the vibration of the whole of a sonorous body, as distinguished from the higher tones or HARMONICS produced by that of its parts.

  Fundamental bass, a low note, or series of low notes, forming the root or roots of a chord or succession of chords. Fundamental chord, an old name for the common chord; now extended to any chord formed of harmonics of the fundamental tone.

1751.  trans. Rameau’s Treat. Mus., ii. 9. Of the Fundamental Bass. Ibid., x. 28. Any one of the Notes contained in the fundamental Chords.

1825.  Danneley, Encycl. Mus., Fundamental Movement, progression or movement of that species of bass. Ibid. Fundamental Sound, the gravest sound or generator.

1828.  T. Busby, Music. Man., Fundamental Bass. That bass on which the superincumbent harmony is founded; or of which the superior parts of the accompanying chord constitute the third, fifth, and eighth. Ibid. Fundamental Chord. A chord consisting of the third, fifth and eighth, of the fundamental bass.

1831.  Brewster, Nat. Magic, viii. (1833), 181. This sound is called the fundamental sound of the string, and its acuteness or sharpness increases with the number of vibrations which the string performs in a second.

1876.  trans. Blaserna’s Sound, i. 18. The note is the lowest that the pipe can give, for which reason it is called the fundamental note of the pipe.

1876.  Stainer & Barrett, Dict. Mus. Terms, Fundamental tones. The tones from which harmonics are generated.

1889.  E. Prout, Harmony, iii. § 61. Our ‘fundamental chord’—that is, a chord composed of the harmonics of its fundamental tone, or generator. Ibid., ix. § 197. We here meet … with a ‘fundamental discord.’

  ¶ 7.  jocularly. Of or pertaining to the fundament or ‘seat,’ posterior.

1767.  A. Campbell, Lexiph. (1774), 65. I lingered behind, detained by my fundamental malady.

1828.  Blackw. Mag., XXIV. 184. He fixes his fundamental feature upon the outer edge of a chair.

  Hence Fundamentalness.

1727.  in Bailey, vol. II.

  B.  sb.

  1.  A leading or primary principle, rule, law, or article, which serves as the groundwork of a system; an essential part. Chiefly in pl.; the sing. is obs. or arch.

1637.  Crt. & Times Chas. I. (1848), II. 263. They have composed a symbol of fundamentals, which both the Lutherans and Calvinists do hold without interfering one with another.

1641.  Vind. Smectymnuus, iv. 60. How then is Episcopacie one of the fundamentals of the kingdome?

1650.  H. Brooke, Conserv. Health, 24. A Fundamentall in Physic.

a. 1652.  J. Smith, Sel. Disc., VI. v. (1821), 228. Relying upon this known fundamental, viz. That there is no prophecy revealed but by one of these two ways.

1704.  Nelson, Compan. Festiv. & Fasts, vii. (1739), 540. The same Apostle mentions as a Fundamental, not only the Doctrine of Baptism but also the laying on of Hands by which ancient and modern Interpeters of a very good Character, understand Confirmation.

1862.  Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), IV. xxxix. 373. However much of the details of their political constitution the Romans derived from the Etruscans, they permitted little deviation, under that foreign influence, from these great fundamentals.

1864.  Burton, Scot Abr., I. i. 16. There is an odd tenacity of life in the fundamentals of … legends.

1878.  Morley, Vauvenargues, Crit. Misc., 11. Accepting no dogma, so far as we can judge, and complying with no observances, very faint and doubtful as to even the fundamentals—God, immortality, and the like—he never partook of the furious and bitter antipathy of the best men of that century against the church, its creeds, and its book.

  b.  pl. Fundamental requisites. ? nonce-use.

1864.  E. Burritt, Walk Lond. to John O’Groats, 358. Everything was brought from a distance, event their bread, bacon and butter. Their stock of these fundamentals was exhausted.

  2.  Mus. Short for fundamental tone or note: see A. 6. (Formerly = key-note.)

1727–41.  Chambers, Cycl., Fundamental, in music, denotes the principal note of a song or composition, to which all the rest are in some measure adapted, and by which they are swayed.

1825.  Danneley, Encycl. Mus., Fundamental, the principal note or root of a harmony, concordant or discordant.