first
English[edit]
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Cardinal: one Ordinal: first Latinate ordinal: primary Adverbial: one time, once Multiplier: onefold Latinate multiplier: single Distributive: singly Collective: onesome Multiuse collective: singlet Greek or Latinate collective: monad Greek collective prefix: mono- Latinate collective prefix: uni- Fractional: whole Elemental: singlet Greek prefix: proto- Number of musicians: solo Number of years: year |
Pronunciation[edit]
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /fɜːst/
- (General American) enPR: fŭrst, IPA(key): /fɝst/
- (Scotland) IPA(key): /fɪrst/, /fʌrst/
Audio (US) (file) - Hyphenation: first
- Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)st
Etymology 1[edit]
From Middle English first, furst, ferst, fyrst, from Old English fyrest, from Proto-West Germanic *furist, from Proto-Germanic *furistaz (“foremost, first”), superlative of Proto-Germanic *fur, *fura, *furi (“before”), from Proto-Indo-European *per-, *pero- (“forward, beyond, around”), equivalent to fore + -est.
Cognate with North Frisian foarste (“first”), Dutch voorste (“foremost, first”), German Fürst (“chief, prince”, literally “first (born)”), Swedish först (“first”), Norwegian Nynorsk fyrst (“first”), Icelandic fyrstur (“first”).
Other cognates include Sanskrit पूर्व (pūrva, “first”) and Russian первый (pervyj).
Alternative forms[edit]
Adjective[edit]
first (not comparable)
- Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest.
- Hancock was first to arrive.
- 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
- Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.
- 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
- The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).
- The first day of September 2013 was a Sunday.
- I was the first runner to reach the finish line, and won the race.
- Most eminent or exalted; most excellent; chief; highest.
- 1784: William Jones, The Description and Use of a New Portable Orrery, &c., PREFACE
- THE favourable reception the Orrery has met with from Perſons of the firſt diſtinction, and from Gentlemen and Ladies in general, has induced me to add to it ſeveral new improvements in order to give it a degree of Perfection; and diſtinguiſh it from others; which by Piracy, or Imitation, may be introduced to the Public.
- 1880, S. W. Silver, Handbook for Australia & New Zealand, Co, page 146:
- It rose to be the first of pastoral regions, and continued until after the gold discovery to be the land of squatterdom.
- Demosthenes was the first orator of Greece.
- the first violinist
- 1784: William Jones, The Description and Use of a New Portable Orrery, &c., PREFACE
- Of or belonging to a first family.
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
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Adverb[edit]
first (not comparable)
- Before anything else; firstly.
- Clean the sink first, before you even think of starting to cook.
- I plunged nose first into the water.
- 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 8, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
- That concertina was a wonder in its way. The handles that was on it first was wore out long ago, and he'd made new ones of braided rope yarn. And the bellows was patched in more places than a cranberry picker's overalls.
- 2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29:
- Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.
- For the first time.
- I first witnessed a death when I was nine years old.
- (Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, nonstandard) Now.[1]
Synonyms[edit]
- See also Thesaurus:firstly
Translations[edit]
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Noun[edit]
first (countable and uncountable, plural firsts)
- (uncountable) The person or thing in the first position.
- He was the first to complete the course.
- 1699, William Temple, Heads designed for an essay on conversations[1]:
- Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.
- (uncountable) The first gear of an engine.
- (countable) Something that has never happened before; a new occurrence.
- This is a first. For once he has nothing to say.
- 2020, Jim Pace, Should We Fire God?:
- I remember other firsts: how I wussily asked her out the first time, and the first time I told her I loved her.
- (countable, baseball) first base
- There was a close play at first.
- (countable, Britain, colloquial) A first-class honours degree.
- 2004, William H. Cropper, Great Physicists, page 454:
- [Stephen Hawking] […] would go to Cambridge, he said, if they gave him a first, and stay at Oxford if they gave him a second. He got a first.
- (countable, colloquial) A first-edition copy of some publication.
- (in combination) A fraction whose (integer) denominator ends in the digit 1.
- one forty-first of the estate
Translations[edit]
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Derived terms[edit]
- at first
- at first bluff
- at first blush
- at first glance
- at first sight
- at the first brunt
- blink first
- breadth-first search
- cast the first stone
- chief petty officer first class
- cloud-first
- code-first
- come first
- court of first instance
- database-first
- dead first
- depth-first search
- double first
- double first cousin
- eighty-first
- error of the first kind
- face first
- feet-first
- feet first
- fifty-first
- fifty-first state
- first aid
- first-aid box
- first-aider
- first-aid kit
- first aid kit
- first among equals
- first and foremost
- first and last
- first annual
- first article
- first baseman
- first basing
- first bite free
- first blood
- firstborn
- first-born
- first call
- first catch your hare
- first cause
- first chair
- first-chance exception
- first choice
- first-chop
- first citizen
- first city
- first-class, first class
- first-class citizen
- first-class continuation
- first-class entity
- first class match
- first-class object
- first-class value
- first come, first served
- first-come-first-served
- first come first served
- first conditional
- first contact
- first cosmic velocity
- first cousin
- first cousin once removed
- first cousin thrice removed
- first cousin twice removed
- first-day cover, first day cover
- first death
- first declension
- first-degree
- first-degree burn
- first-degree murder
- first-degree relative
- first dibs
- first division
- first down
- first eleven
- first e-rights
- first-ever
- first fiddle
- first fifteen
- first finger
- first-fit
- first five-eighth
- first flight cover
- first floor
- first flush
- first folio
- first-foot
- first footing
- first-footing
- first freedom rights
- first fruits
- first fundamental form
- first gear
- first-generation
- first gentleman
- first grade
- first grader
- first-half
- first half
- first hand
- first-hand
- first imperative (Latin grammar)
- first impression
- first in first out
- first inversion
- first island chain
- First Lady
- first lady
- first language
- first leg
- first lieutenant
- first light
- first-line
- first loser
- first love
- firstly
- first mate
- first milk
- first minister
- first mover
- first name
- first night
- first normal form
- first notice day
- first of all
- first off
- first officer
- first-of-its-kind
- first of never
- first olive out of the bottle
- first olive out of the jar
- first-order
- first-order logic
- first order of the day
- first-order spectrum
- first order stream
- first palatalization
- first party
- first-party
- first-party logistics
- first-passage time
- first past the post
- first-person
- first person
- first-person dual
- first-person plural
- first-person shooter
- first-person singular
- first place
- first point of Aries
- first point of Cancer
- first point of Capricorn
- first point of Libra
- first port of call
- first principle
- first principles
- first quarter
- first rain
- first-rate
- first rate
- first reader
- first reading
- first receiver
- first responder
- first sale doctrine
- first-sale doctrine
- first school
- First Sea Lord
- first sergeant
- first sergeant
- first session
- first slip
- first strike
- first-string
- first string
- first-stringer
- first team
- first-teamer
- first thing
- first things first
- first time
- first-time
- first-time buyer
- first-timer
- first touch
- first truth
- first unit
- first up
- first violin
- first violinist
- first watch
- first water
- first-wave feminism
- first-waver
- first woman
- first world problem
- forty-first
- get to first base
- half-first cousin
- have the first idea
- head first
- head-first
- health is your first wealth
- hundred-and-first
- hundred-first
- if at first you don't succeed
- in the first instance
- in the first place
- ladies first
- last in first out
- let he who is without sin cast the first stone
- let him that is without sin cast the first stone
- let him who is without sin cast the first stone
- love at first sight
- make the first move
- model-first
- murder in the first degree
- Newton's first law
- ninety-first
- nose-first
- not have the first idea
- not if I see you first
- not one's first rodeo
- on a first-name basis
- on first-name terms
- party of the first part
- people-first language
- perpetual motion machine of the first kind
- petty officer first class
- pinch and a punch for the first of the month
- play first fiddle
- private first class
- right of first refusal
- sergeant first class
- seventy-first
- shoot first and ask questions later
- single-first cousin
- sixty-first
- splendid first strike
- tender-first
- the first step is always the hardest
- thirty-first
- to a first approximation
- touch-first
- twenty-first
- what was your first clue
- who's on first
- women and children first
See also[edit]
Etymology 2[edit]
From Middle English first, furst, fyrst, from Old English fyrst, fierst, first (“period, space of time, time, respite, truce”), from Proto-Germanic *frestaz, *fristiz, *frestą (“date, appointed time”), from Proto-Indo-European *pres-, *per- (“forward, forth, over, beyond”). Cognate with North Frisian ferst, frest (“period, time”), German Frist (“period, deadline, term”), Swedish frist (“deadline, respite, reprieve, time-limit”), Icelandic frestur (“period”). See also frist.
Noun[edit]
first (plural firsts)
References[edit]
- first at OneLook Dictionary Search
- ^ Nury Vittachi (2002), “From Yinglish to sado-mastication”, in Kingsley Bolton, editor, Hong Kong English: Autonomy and Creativity, Hong Kong University Press, page 213: “Another word with what is apparently a direct translation is the word 'first', which is 'sin' in Cantonese. The two words do seem to have largely identical meanings, except 'sin' also carries the meaning 'now'.”
Anagrams[edit]
Middle English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Old English fyrest, from Proto-West Germanic *furist, from Proto-Germanic *furistaz.
Pronunciation[edit]
Adjective[edit]
first
Descendants[edit]
References[edit]
- “first, ord. num. (as adj. & n.).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɜː(ɹ)st
- Rhymes:English/ɜː(ɹ)st/1 syllable
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *preh₂-
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
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