Link Centre Dictionary

foremost

fo·re·most

UK/ˈfɔː.məʊst/ US/ˈfɔˌrmoʊst/ fairly common
adjective (3) adverb (2)

adjective

1.

ranking above all others

  • “was first in her class”
  • “the foremost figure among marine artists”
  • “the top graduate”
Synonyms
Similar
2.

situated closest to the bow

  • “the foremost compartment of the ship”
Similar
3.

preceding all others in spatial position

  • “the foremost compartment of the ship”
Synonyms
Similar

adverb

1.

prominently forward

  • “he put his best foot foremost”
Synonyms
2.

before anything else

  • “first we must consider the garter snake”
Synonyms

Origin

From Old English formest, fyrmest (“earliest, first, most prominent”), from Proto-Germanic *frumistaz, from the locative stem *fur-, *fr- + the superlative suffix *-umistaz, stem ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pr-. The suffix *-umistaz was a compound suffix, created from the rarer comparative suffix *-umô (as in Old English fruma) + the regular superlative suffix *-istaz (English -est); *-umô in turn is from Proto-Indo-European *-mHo-. Cognate with Old Frisian formest, Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌿𐌼𐌹𐍃𐍄𐍃 (frumists). See for, first and Old English fruma for more. Partially cognate to primus, from Proto-Indo-European *pr- + Latin superlative suffix -imus, from Proto-Indo-European *-mHo-. A comparative former was back-formed analogically, leaving the m from *-umô in place. Later the Old English suffix complex -(u)m-est was conflated with the word most through folk etymology, so that the word is now interpreted as fore + -most.

Phrases

  • first and foremost
  • put one's best foot foremost

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.