as in main
coming before all others in importance
the cardinal rule of medicine: do no harm
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Recent Examples of cardinal
Changing that state of affairs, and doing so as quickly as possible, is a cardinal European task.
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Ilan Berman, MSNBC Newsweek, 4 Dec. 2025
Nearby, a stone pagoda bears a tall, striking pillar which has four Buddha faces — one per cardinal direction.
—Lilit Marcus, CNN Money, 27 Nov. 2025
There are three such cardinal winds, each of them gods and all of them supposedly siblings, three male and the fourth, a southeasterly that tends to blow in the wet winter season, female.
—Big Think, 18 Nov. 2025
At the very bottom lay a smaller cross-shaped chamber, where colored soils – blue, green, and yellow – were carefully placed to match the four cardinal directions.
—New Atlas, 14 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for cardinal
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cardinal
Adjective
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And one of its main ingredients was a hair product – Afro Sheen.—
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Then the Orion capsule will fire up its main thruster and shoot off towards the Moon on its 240,000-mile, four-day journey.—
Adjective
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If the recovering addicts’ primary task was to filter out women who wouldn’t qualify to sue—namely, those who didn’t have pelvic mesh or who did but weren’t in pain—Blake’s was to amp up the value of their lawsuits (and attorneys’ fees) by convincing them to have their mesh surgically removed.—
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The other available Heat players who were out of the primary rotation Saturday were Keshad Johnson, Simone Fontecchio, Kasparas Jakucionis and Myron Gardner.—
Adjective
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Still, the predominant image of Levi Strauss heir Lurie is that of an earnest problem solver blending private sector agility with an ability to experiment with public policy.—
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The predominant symptoms experienced by the ill passengers and crew members were vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal cramps.—
Adjective
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That simple change would introduce real competition, allowing merchants to choose lower-cost options and forcing the dominant players to compete on price and service--just like any other market.—
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Eighty years later, Adolph’s conclusions about the impossibility of adapting to dehydration are still the dominant view.—
Adjective
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My colleague Jeff, one of the foremost space experts in the world, just published a feature on the efforts to build data centers in space.—
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Many of the city’s foremost bakers — including Sherry Yard, Nancy Silverton, Sumi Chang — brought cookies to share.—
Adjective
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The principal ownership for both leases is the same — Art Engel, a longtime player in tidelands real estate.—
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Tax revenue from stock-option withholding paid by some of the state’s biggest tech companies made up about 10% of all income tax withholding in 2025, estimated Chas Alamo, the principal fiscal and policy analyst with the LAO.—
Adjective
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Lenovo came out all guns blazing at CES 2026, using its biggest global stage yet to signal major leaps across devices, AI, and partnerships.—
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And, in the aftermath, these were Chiefs coaches’ biggest regrets following a season gone awry.—
Adjective
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His first action of the night came after about three minutes into the game, not long after going over to the exercise bike parked just outside the tunnel leading to their locker room, jumping on it while being advised by a member of the Hornets’ performance staff.—
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Pratt launched his mayoral run on the first anniversary of the Los Angeles fires, which destroyed his and his wife Heidi Montag’s home.—
Cite this Entry
“Cardinal.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cardinal. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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