archi-

or arch-

pref.

1. Chief; highest; most important: archiepiscopal.

2. Earlier; primitive: archenteron.

[French archi- and Italian arci-, both from Latin archi-, from Greek arkhi-, arkh-, from arkhein, to begin, rule.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

archi-

combining form

a variant of arch-

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

archi-

a combining form with the general sense “first, principal,” prefixed to nouns denoting things that are earliest, most basic, or bottommost (archiblast; archiphoneme; architrave); or denoting individuals who direct or have authority over others of their class, usu. named by the base noun (archimandrite; architect).

Also, esp. before a vowel,arch-. Compare arch-¹, arche-.

[< Greek, comb. form akin to archḗ beginning, árchos leader, árchein to be the first, command]

References in classic literature ?

Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual -- he is a combina- tion of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of archi- tecture.

View in context

Gorgeous tradition- I al Japanese archi- ' tecture is hard to beat yet contemporary Japanese designers somehow manage to keep bettering themselves...

THIS WEEK'S STYLE BIBLE

With the tall, upright archi- tecture of an MPV which therefore provides loads of cabin space, it sets out to appeal to keen drivers with gutsy performance and more agile handling.