first-rate
See also: first rate
English
Noun
first-rate (plural first-rates)
- (military, nautical, historical) A ship of the line in the British navy that had over 100 guns on three gun decks
Adjective
- (military, nautical, historical) Describing a ship of the line in the British navy that had over 100 guns on three gundecks.
- (by extension) Exceptionally good.
- Matthew Arnold
- Our only first-rate body of contemporary poetry is the German.
- 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 1, in The Celebrity:
- He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me.
- Matthew Arnold
Translations
exceptionally good
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