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• n  the elementary stages of any subject (usually plural)
  he mastered only the rudiments of geometry
• n  the remains of a body part that was functional at an earlier stage of life
  Meckel's diverticulum is the rudiment of the embryonic yolk sac

• Slowlypeople in Western Europe acquired the rudiments of nationalidentity, defined at first largely in religious terms.
• After several hours of frustration, I began to discover the rudiments of how to use virtual blocks of instruction to get the robot to move, respond to a clap, back up when it hit a .
• Some came with nothing, not even the rudiments of English.

• first rudiment
• first principle
• alphabet
• ABC
• ABC's
• ABCs

Quotes

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• Vladimir Putin in guardian.co.uk
  It's their brains, not our constitution, which need to be changed,Mr Putin told activists of pro-Kremlin youth organisations. "What they are offering to us is a clear rudiment of colonial thinking."
• Sergei Ivanov in International Herald Tribune
  Ivanov called the treaty "a relic, a rudiment of the Cold War," saying that dozens of nations have developed intermediate range missiles since the pact was signed, and many of them are located close to Russia's borders.
• Jonathan Lethem in calendarlive.com
  Imagining the birth of "Monster Eyes" during a rehearsal, Lethem describes a raw, spontaneous give-and-take: "The sound was sprung, uncanny, pre-verbal, the bass and drum the rudiment of life itself, argument and taunt, and each turn of the figure a...