first
//fɜːst//
Forms
- Superlative
- firstmost
- Plural
- firsts
Definitions
1.Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest.
- The first day of September 2013 was a Sunday.
- I was the first runner to reach the finish line, and won the race.
- Hancock was first to arrive.
2.Most eminent or exalted; most excellent; chief; highest.
- Demosthenes was the first orator of Greece.
- The French openings decided that satin gowns, suits, wraps and even hats were to be in first fashion this autumn.
- It rose to be the first of pastoral regions, and continued until after the gold discovery to be the land of squatterdom.
3.Coming right after the zeroth in things that use zero-based numbering.
- I'm the first one to get to work.
- She acted in a play for the first time.
- Some people say that you shouldn't check your email first thing in the morning.
4.Of or belonging to a first family.
- I'm the first one to get to work.
- She acted in a play for the first time.
- Some people say that you shouldn't check your email first thing in the morning.
1.Before anything else; firstly.
- I plunged nose first into the water.
- Clean the sink first, before you even think of starting to cook.
- 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.
2.For the first time.
- I first witnessed a death when I was nine years old.
1.The 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.
2.The first gear of an engine.
Frequency
Overall
Very common· #94
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Common
- General reading & writing
- Very common
- Academic
- Uncommon
- Literature
- Uncommon
Related words
Etymology
From Middle English first, furst, ferst, fyrst, from Old English fyrest, from Proto-West Germanic *furist, from Proto-Germanic *furistaz (“first, foremost”), superlative of Proto-Germanic *furai, *furi (“before”), from Proto-Indo-European *preh₂- (“before”), from *per- (“before; first”), equivalent to fore + -est.