first

Hancock was first to arrive.

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.

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:

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).

2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

The first day of September 2013 was a Sunday.

I was the first runner to reach the finish line, and won the race.

Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest.

Demosthenes was the first orator of Greece.

the first violinist

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.

It rose to be the first of pastoral regions, and continued until after the gold discovery to be the land of squatterdom.

1880, S. W. Silver, Handbook for Australia & New Zealand, Co, page 146:

The French openings decided that satin gowns, suits, wraps and even hats were to be in first fashion this autumn.

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:

Most eminent or exalted; most excellent; chief; highest.

First Cat; First Daughter; First Dog; First Son

Coming right after the zeroth in things that use zero-based numbering.

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).

cog

Ist (alternative)
I (alternative)
I. (alternative)
firste (alternative)
fyrst (alternative)
fyrste (alternative)


first

Clean the sink first, before you even think of starting to cook.

I plunged nose first into the water.

That concertina was a wonder in its way. The handles that was on it first was wore out long ago, and he'd made new ones of braided rope yarn. And the bellows was patched in more places than a cranberry picker's overalls.

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.

2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29:

I first witnessed a death when I was nine years old.

(Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, nonstandard) Now.


first

He was the first to complete the course.

Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.

1699, William Temple, Heads designed for an essay on conversations:

(uncountable) The person or thing in the first position.

(uncountable) The first gear of an engine.

This is a first. For once he has nothing to say.

I remember other firsts: how I wussily asked her out the first time, and the first time I told her I loved her.

(countable) Something that has never happened before; a new occurrence.

There was a close play at first.

[Stephen Hawking] […] would go to Cambridge, he said, if they gave him a first, and stay at Oxford if they gave him a second. He got a first.

2004, William H. Cropper, Great Physicists, page 454:

(countable, British, colloquial) A first-class honours degree.

(countable, colloquial) A first-edition copy of some publication.

one forty-first of the estate

(in combination) A fraction whose (integer) denominator ends in the digit 1.

en-noun

first (countable and uncountable, plural firsts)

firsts (plural)
Ist (alternative)
I (alternative)
I. (alternative)
firste (alternative)
fyrst (alternative)
fyrste (alternative)

เกียรตินิยมอันดับหนึ่ง

UK colloquial: first-class honours degree


first

This motion has been firsted and seconded. I desire to third it.

1828, Diary of Thomas Burton, Esq. Member in the Parliaments of Oliver and Richard Cromwell, from 1656 to 1659: […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 290:

Sure—er—well, the motion was firsted and seconded that we kick ’em out; […]

1920, Rural Manhood, volume 11, page 241, column 1:

Sure, Brother Severn, I second that motion. If you hadn’t got ahead of me I’d have firsted it myself.

1922, Grace Livingston Hill, The City of Fire, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, page 139:

(rare) To propose (a new motion) in a meeting, which must subsequently be seconded.

en-verb

first (third-person singular simple present firsts, present participle firsting, simple past and past participle firsted)

firsts (present singular third-person)
firsting (participle present)
firsted (participle past)
firsted (past)
Ist (alternative)
I (alternative)
I. (alternative)
firste (alternative)
fyrst (alternative)
fyrste (alternative)

let he who is without sin cast the first stone

let him that is without sin cast the first stone

let him who is without sin cast the first stone

no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy

no plan survives first contact with the enemy

perpetual motion machine of the first kind

pinch and a punch for the first of the month

the first turn of the screw pays all debts

what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive


first

From Middle English first, furst, fyrst, from Old English fyrst, fierst, first (“period, space of time, time, respite, truce”), from Proto-Germanic *frestaz, *fristiz, *frestą (“date, appointed time”), from Proto-Indo-European *pres-, *per- (“forward, forth, over, beyond”). Cognate with North Frisian ferst, frest (“period, time”), German Frist (“period, deadline, term”), Swedish frist (“deadline, respite, reprieve, time-limit”), Icelandic frestur (“period”). See also frist.