first
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /fɜːst/
ipa: /fɔːst/
ipa: /fɪrst/
ipa: /fʌrst/
enpr: fŭrst
ipa: /fɚst/
note: Local Dublin
ipa: /fʊːɹs/
ipa: [fɚːst]
ipa: [fəɹst]
ipa: /fɜ(r)sʈ/
note: non-rhotic, also
ipa: /fə(r)sʈ/
ipa: /fʊrst/
ipa: /fɪrst/
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)st
Forms: form: firstmost
form: 1st
form: Ist
form: I
form: I.
form: firste
form: fyrst
form: fyrste
Etymology: From 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).
Senses: examples: text: Hancock was first to arrive.
text: The first day of September 2013 was a Sunday.
text: I was the first runner to reach the finish line, and won the race.
text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: 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).
ref: 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847, archived from the original on 19 Aug 2022:
text: 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.
ref: 2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, page 21:
glosses: Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest.
examples: text: Demosthenes was the first orator of Greece.
text: the first violinist
text: 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.
text: It rose to be the first of pastoral regions, and continued until after the gold discovery to be the land of squatterdom.
ref: 1880, S. W. Silver, Handbook for Australia & New Zealand, Co, page 146:
text: The French openings decided that satin gowns, suits, wraps and even hats were to be in first fashion this autumn.
ref: 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:
glosses: Most eminent or exalted; most excellent; chief; highest.
examples: First Cat; First Daughter; First Dog; First Son
glosses: Of or belonging to a first family.
glosses: Coming right after the zeroth in things that use zero-based numbering.
Related terms: for
fore