elemental.

1. Relating to the most basic parts, forces, or qualities of something.

2. Made of a single type of atom rather than a chemical compound.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• elemental needs
• elemental forces

On the page

The journey reduced their concerns to elemental needs.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Normally non-gradable; no ordinary comparative or superlative. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: analysis, evaluation, qualification. Commonness: moderately common.