first

superlative firstmost · alternative 1st · alternative Ist · alternative I · alternative I. · alternative pronunciation spelling furst · alternative archaic firste · alternative obsolete fyrst · alternative obsolete fyrste

1. no comparativePreceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest.

   Hancock was first to arrive.

   5 more examples

   The first day of September 2013 was a Sunday.

   I was the first runner to reach the finish line, and won the race.

   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.

   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

   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).

   2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847, archived from the original on 19 Aug 2022

   Consequently, in the initial position the white pieces and pawns are placed on the first and second ranks; the black pieces and pawns on the eighth and seventh ranks.

   2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, archived from the original on 16 Mar 2025, page 21

   Synonyms: maiden, prime

2. no comparativeMost eminent or exalted; most excellent; chief; highest.

   the first violinist

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   Demosthenes was the first orator of Greece.

   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.

   It rose to be the first of pastoral regions, and continued until after the gold discovery to be the land of squatterdom.

   1880, S. W. Silver, Handbook for Australia & New Zealand, Co, page 146

   The French openings decided that satin gowns, suits, wraps and even hats were to be in first fashion this autumn.

   1916 September 11, Anne Rittenhouse, “Dress: One-piece Frocks of Satin in Neutral Colors, With Bits of Colored Embroidery”, in The Journal and Tribune, volume 30, number 235, Knoxville, Tenn., page 6

3. no comparativeOf or belonging to a first family.

   First Cat; First Daughter; First Dog; First Son

4. no comparativeComing right after the zeroth in things that use zero-based numbering.

alternative 1st · alternative Ist · alternative I · alternative I. · alternative pronunciation spelling furst · alternative archaic firste · alternative obsolete fyrst · alternative obsolete fyrste

1. not comparableBefore anything else; firstly.

   I plunged nose first into the water.

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   Clean the sink first, before you even think of starting to cook.

   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.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

   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.

   2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, archived from the original on 11 Mar 2023, page 29

2. not comparableFor the first time.

   I first witnessed a death when I was nine years old.

plural firsts · alternative 1st · alternative Ist · alternative I · alternative I. · alternative pronunciation spelling furst · alternative archaic firste · alternative obsolete fyrst · alternative obsolete fyrste

1. uncountableThe person or thing in the first position.

   He was the first to complete the course.

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   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.

   1699, William Temple, Heads designed for an essay on conversations

2. uncountableThe first gear of an engine.
3. countableSomething that has never happened before; a new occurrence.

   This is a first. For once he has nothing to say.

   1 more example

   I remember other firsts: how I wussily asked her out the first time, and the first time I told her I loved her.

   2020, Jim Pace, Should We Fire God?

4. countableball gamesFirst base.

   There was a close play at first.

5. UKcolloquialcountableA 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.

   2004, William H. Cropper, Great Physicists, page 454

6. colloquialcountableA first-edition copy of some publication.
7. countablein compoundsuncountableA fraction whose (integer) denominator ends in the digit 1.

   one forty-first of the estate

present singular third person firsts · participle present firsting · participle past firsted · past firsted · alternative 1st · alternative Ist · alternative I · alternative I. · alternative pronunciation spelling furst · alternative archaic firste · alternative obsolete fyrst · alternative obsolete fyrste

1. raretransitiveTo propose (a new motion) in a meeting, which must subsequently be seconded.

   This motion has been firsted and seconded. I desire to third it.

   1828, Diary of Thomas Burton, Esq. Member in the Parliaments of Oliver and Richard Cromwell, from 1656 to 1659: […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 290

   2 more examples

   Sure—er—well, the motion was firsted and seconded that we kick ’em out; […]

   1920, Rural Manhood, volume 11, page 241, column 1

   Sure, Brother Severn, I second that motion. If you hadn’t got ahead of me I’d have firsted it myself.

   1922, Grace Livingston Hill, The City of Fire, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, page 139

plural firsts

1. obsoleteTime; time granted; respite.

1. A surname.