first base

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

first base (countable and uncountable, plural first bases)

1. (singular only, baseball) The base after home plate in a counter-clockwise path around a baseball infield.

   The runner took his lead off first base.

2. (singular only, by extension) Completion of the first phase of an activity.
3. (singular only, US, colloquial) Kissing, regarded as the first phase of a sexual relationship.

   I got to first base with Danny, and hope to get him naked this weekend.

   • 1951 July 16, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 104:

     Every time I got to the part about her out with Stradlater in that damn Ed Banky's car, it almost drove me crazy. I knew she wouldn’t let him get to first base with her, but it drove me crazy anyway.

4. (blackjack) The betting spot located immediately to the left of the dealer, which is first to receive cards and first to act.

Hypernyms

• base

Derived terms

• first baseman
• first basing

Translations

baseball: base after home plate

• Bulgarian: първа база f (pǎrva baza)
• Catalan: primera base (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 一壘 / 一垒 (yīlěi)

• Finnish: ykköspesä (fi), ykkönen (fi)
• French: premier but (fr) m, première base (fr) f
• Japanese: 一塁 (ja) (ichirui), ファースト (ja) (fāsuto)
• Korean: 1루 (illu), 퍼스트 (peoseuteu)
• Macedonian: прва база f (prva baza)
• Russian: пе́рвая ба́за f (pérvaja báza)

See also

• second base
• third base
• home run / score