secondary

Meanings

Adjective

• Next in order to the first or primary; of second place in origin, rank, etc.
• Originating from a deputy or delegated person or body
• Derived from a parent compound by replacement of two atoms of hydrogen by organic radicals
• Produced by alteration or deposition subsequent to the formation of the original rock mass.
• Developed by pressure or other causes.
• Pertaining to the second joint of the wing of a bird.
• Dependent or consequent upon another disease, or occurring in the second stage of a disease.
• Of less than primary importance.
• Related to secondary education, i.e. schooling between the ages of (approximately) 11 and 18.
• Relating to the manufacture of goods from raw materials.
• Formed by mixing primary colors.
• Representing a reversion to an ancestral state.

Noun

• Any flight feather attached to the ulna (forearm) of a bird.
• A radar return generated by the response of an aircraft's transponder to an interrogation signal broadcast by a radar installation, containing additional encoded identification and situational data not available from a simple primary return.
• The second stage of a multistage thermonuclear weapon, which generates a fusion explosion when imploded as an indirect result of the fission explosion of the primary; in a few extremely large weapons, the secondary may itself implode a fusion tertiary.
• An act of issuing more stock by an already publicly traded corporation.
• The defensive backs.
• An inductive coil or loop that is magnetically powered by a primary in a transformer or similar.
• One who occupies a subordinate or auxiliary place; a delegate deputy.
• A secondary circle.
• A satellite.
• A secondary school.
• Anything secondary or of lesser importance.

Origin

• From Middle English secundarie, from Latin secundārius ("of the second class or quality"), from secundus (whence the English second) + -ārius (whence the English suffix -ary); compare the French secondaire, the Italian secondario, the Occitan secundari, the Portuguese secundario, and the Spanish secundario.