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first

UK/fɜːst/ US/feːst/ very common uk
adjective (7) adverb (4) noun (6)

adjective

1.

preceding all others in time or space or degree

  • “the first house on the right”
  • “the first day of spring”
  • “his first political race”
  • “her first baby”
  • “the first time”
  • “the first meetings of the new party”
  • “the first phase of his training”
Antonyms
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2.

indicating the beginning unit in a series

Synonyms
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3.

serving to set in motion

  • “the magazine”
  • “;”
  • “;”
  • “;”
  • “;”
  • “s maiden voyage”
Synonyms
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4.

serving to begin

  • “the beginning canto of the poem”
  • “the first verse”
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5.

ranking above all others

  • “was first in her class”
  • “the foremost figure among marine artists”
  • “the top graduate”
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6.

highest in pitch or chief among parts or voices or instruments or orchestra sections

  • “first soprano”
  • “the first violin section”
  • “played first horn”
Antonyms
7.

being the gear producing the lowest drive speed

  • “use first gear on steep hills”
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adverb

1.

before anything else

  • “first we must consider the garter snake”
Synonyms
2.

the initial time

  • “when Felix first saw a garter snake”
Synonyms
3.

before another in time, space, or importance

  • “I was here first”
  • “let”
4.

prominently forward

  • “he put his best foot foremost”
Synonyms

noun

1.

the first or highest in an ordering or series

  • “He wanted to be the first”
Synonyms
2.

the first element in a countable series

  • “the first of the month”
Synonyms
3.

the time at which something is supposed to begin

  • “they got an early start”
  • “she knew from the get-go that he was the man for her”
Synonyms
Antonyms
4.

the fielding position of the player on a baseball team who is stationed at first of the bases in the infield (counting counterclockwise from home plate)

Synonyms
5.
6.

the lowest forward gear ratio in the gear box of a motor vehicle; used to start a car moving

Synonyms

Origin

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. Cognates Cognate with Scots first (“first”), Dutch voorste (“foremost, first”), vorst (“prince”), German Fürst (“chief, prince”, literally “first (born)”), Limburgish Vürsch (“prince”), Luxembourgish viischt (“anterior; forward”), Vilamovian fiyśt, fjəšt, fjyśt, fjyšt (“prince”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål først (“first”), Faroese and Icelandic fyrstur (“first”), Norwegian Nynorsk fyrst, først (“first”), Swedish först (“first”); also Latin prīnceps (“first, foremost; chief”), Greek παρ’ (par’), παρά (pará, “despite; less”), Mycenaean Greek 𐀞𐀫 (pa-ro, “from”), Albanian parë (“first; chief, main”), Latgalian pyrmais (“first”), Latvian pirmais (“first; foremost”), Lithuanian pirmas (“first; primary”), Bulgarian пъ́рви (pắrvi), пръ́в (prắv, “first”), Czech and Slovak prvý (“first”), Macedonian прв (prv), први (prvi, “first”), Polish piersy, pierwszy, pirszy (“first”), Rus...

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.