/fɜːst/, /fɔːst/, /fɪrst/
OriginFrom 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).
- no-comparativePreceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest.
“Hancock was first to arrive.”
“The first day of September 2013 was a Sunday.”
“I was the first runner to reach the finish line, and won the race.”
- no-comparativeMost eminent or exalted; most excellent; chief; highest.
“Demosthenes was the first orator of Greece.”
“the first violinist”
“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 Ladie”
- no-comparativeOf or belonging to a first family.
“First Cat; First Daughter; First Dog; First Son”
- no-comparativeComing right after the zeroth in things that use zero-based numbering.
- not-comparableBefore anything else; firstly.
“Clean the sink first, before you even think of starting to cook.”
“I plunged nose first into the water.”
“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 cranberr”
- not-comparableFor the first time.
“I first witnessed a death when I was nine years old.”
- uncountableThe person or thing in the first position.
“He was the first to complete the course.”
“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.”
- uncountableThe first gear of an engine.
- countableSomething that has never happened before; a new occurrence.
“This is a first. For once he has nothing to say.”
“I remember other firsts: how I wussily asked her out the first time, and the first time I told her I loved her.”
- countableFirst base.
“There was a close play at first.”
- British, colloquial, countableA first-class honours degree.
“[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.”
- colloquial, countableA first-edition copy of some publication.
- countable, in-compounds, uncountableA fraction whose (integer) denominator ends in the digit 1.
“one forty-first of the estate”
- obsoleteTime; time granted; respite.
- rare, transitiveTo propose (a new motion) in a meeting, which must subsequently be seconded.
“This motion has been firsted and seconded. I desire to third it.”
“Sure—er—well, the motion was firsted and seconded that we kick ’em out; […]”
“Sure, Brother Severn, I second that motion. If you hadn’t got ahead of me I’d have firsted it myself.”
Formsfirstmost(superlative) · 1st(alternative) · Ist(alternative) · I(alternative) · I.(alternative) · firste(alternative, archaic) · fyrst(alternative, obsolete) · fyrste(alternative, obsolete) · firsts(plural) · firsts(present, singular, third-person) · firsting(participle, present) · firsted(participle, past) · firsted(past)