first
/fɚst/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 6.11 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of or belonging to a first family.
adj
Coming right after the zeroth in things that use zero-based numbering.
adv
Before anything else; firstly.
adv
For the first time.
Example Sentences
- "Hancock was first to arrive."
- "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."
- "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)."
- "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."
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. 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”), Russian пе́рвый (pérvyj, “first”), Serbo-Croatian пр̑вӣ, pȓvī (“first”), Slovene prvi (“first”), Armenian հարավ (harav, “south”), Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬎𐬭𐬎𐬎𐬀 (paᵘruua, “before, first”), Tocharian A pärwat (“first”), Tocharian B parwe (“first”), Sanskrit पूर्व (pūrva, “before”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /fɚst/
- British English: /fɜːst/
Usage
Inflected Forms
firstmost (superlative)
1st (alternative)
Ist (alternative)
I (alternative)
I. (alternative)
furst (alternative, pronunciation spelling)
firste (alternative, archaic)
fyrst (alternative, obsolete)
fyrste (alternative, obsolete)
firsts (plural)
firsts (present, singular)
firsting (participle, present)