primary source

noun

plural primary sources

information science

: an account or record (such as a first-hand account, a contemporaneous news report, a photograph, or an audio or video recording) reflecting direct experience of a thing (such as a historical event) that is being researched or studied

Primary sources are the raw materials of history—original documents and objects that were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts that retell, analyze, or interpret events, usually at a distance of time or place.

—Library of Congress

Primary sources include birth certificates, photographs, diaries, letters, embroidered samplers, clothing, household implements, and newspapers.

—Smithsonian Institution

Word History

First Known Use

1862, in the meaning defined above