See first water on Wiktionary
{
"derived": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"word": "of the first water"
}
],
"etymology_text": "The term originated in the gemstone trade, where it was used to signify water-like clarity.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "first water (uncountable)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0",
"tags": [
"adjective"
],
"word": "first-degree"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "61 39",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "71 29",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "77 23",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "81 19",
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Gems",
"orig": "en:Gems",
"parents": [
"Jewelry",
"Mineralogy",
"Clothing",
"Geology",
"Human",
"Earth sciences",
"All topics",
"Sciences",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “The Ponds”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC:",
"text": "Who knows in how many unremembered nations’ literatures this has been the Castalian Fountain? or what nymphs presided over it in the Golden Age? It is a gem of the first water which Concord wears in her coronet.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1880, HB Cornwall, “Gems and Precious Stones”, in WM Patterson, editor, The Growing world; or, Progress of civilization, and the wonders of nature, science, literature and art, interspersed with a useful and entertaining collection of miscellany, page 20:",
"text": "To be the first water a diamond must be absolutely colorless, very lustrous, and perfectly free from flaws.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1915, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, Anne of the Island, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, →OCLC:",
"text": "“Here’s one I wrote. My heroine is disporting herself at a ball ‘glittering from head to foot with large diamonds of the first water.’",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"The highest quality of gemstones, especially of diamonds and pearls."
],
"id": "en-first_water-en-noun-en:highest_quality_of_gemstone",
"links": [
[
"quality",
"quality"
],
[
"gemstone",
"gemstone"
],
[
"diamond",
"diamond"
],
[
"pearl",
"pearl"
]
],
"senseid": [
"en:highest quality of gemstone"
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He's a liar, swindler, and hypocrite—a scoundrel of the first water.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1897, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “[Pudd’nhead Wilson] Chapter”, in The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson: And the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 135:",
"text": "Dave’s just an all-round genius—a genius of the first water, gentlemen;[…]",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1897, Bram Stoker, chapter XX, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC:",
"text": "This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1922, Robert C. Benchley, chapter XXII, in Love Conquers All, Henry Holt & Company, page 111:",
"text": "“A nice, juicy steak,” he is said to have called for, “French fries, apple pie and a cup of coffee.” It is probable that he really said “a coff of cuppee,” however, as he was a wag of the first water and loved a joke as well as the next king.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1934 February, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice & Performance”, in Railway Magazine, pages 93–94:",
"text": "Presumably this was another case in which an engine had failed and had been replaced at short notice; certain it is that none but experts of the very first water could have coaxed such amazing work out of an engine of such comparatively small dimensions.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"The highest rank or quality or the greatest degree."
],
"id": "en-first_water-en-noun-en:highest_rank_or_greatest_degree",
"raw_glosses": [
"(by extension) The highest rank or quality or the greatest degree."
],
"senseid": [
"en:highest rank or greatest degree"
],
"tags": [
"broadly",
"uncountable"
]
}
],
"word": "first water"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English uncountable nouns",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"en:Gems"
],
"derived": [
{
"word": "of the first water"
}
],
"etymology_text": "The term originated in the gemstone trade, where it was used to signify water-like clarity.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "first water (uncountable)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"tags": [
"adjective"
],
"word": "first-degree"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “The Ponds”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC:",
"text": "Who knows in how many unremembered nations’ literatures this has been the Castalian Fountain? or what nymphs presided over it in the Golden Age? It is a gem of the first water which Concord wears in her coronet.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1880, HB Cornwall, “Gems and Precious Stones”, in WM Patterson, editor, The Growing world; or, Progress of civilization, and the wonders of nature, science, literature and art, interspersed with a useful and entertaining collection of miscellany, page 20:",
"text": "To be the first water a diamond must be absolutely colorless, very lustrous, and perfectly free from flaws.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1915, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, Anne of the Island, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, →OCLC:",
"text": "“Here’s one I wrote. My heroine is disporting herself at a ball ‘glittering from head to foot with large diamonds of the first water.’",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"The highest quality of gemstones, especially of diamonds and pearls."
],
"links": [
[
"quality",
"quality"
],
[
"gemstone",
"gemstone"
],
[
"diamond",
"diamond"
],
[
"pearl",
"pearl"
]
],
"senseid": [
"en:highest quality of gemstone"
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He's a liar, swindler, and hypocrite—a scoundrel of the first water.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1897, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “[Pudd’nhead Wilson] Chapter”, in The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson: And the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 135:",
"text": "Dave’s just an all-round genius—a genius of the first water, gentlemen;[…]",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1897, Bram Stoker, chapter XX, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC:",
"text": "This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1922, Robert C. Benchley, chapter XXII, in Love Conquers All, Henry Holt & Company, page 111:",
"text": "“A nice, juicy steak,” he is said to have called for, “French fries, apple pie and a cup of coffee.” It is probable that he really said “a coff of cuppee,” however, as he was a wag of the first water and loved a joke as well as the next king.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1934 February, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice & Performance”, in Railway Magazine, pages 93–94:",
"text": "Presumably this was another case in which an engine had failed and had been replaced at short notice; certain it is that none but experts of the very first water could have coaxed such amazing work out of an engine of such comparatively small dimensions.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"The highest rank or quality or the greatest degree."
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(by extension) The highest rank or quality or the greatest degree."
],
"senseid": [
"en:highest rank or greatest degree"
],
"tags": [
"broadly",
"uncountable"
]
}
],
"word": "first water"
}
Download raw JSONL data for first water meaning in All languages combined (3.8kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.