first

adj

1. (no-comparative)Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest.

   “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).”

2. (no-comparative)Most eminent or exalted; most excellent; chief; highest.

   “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.”

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

3. (no-comparative)Of or belonging to a first family.

   “First Cat; First Daughter; First Dog; First Son”

4. (no-comparative)Coming right after the zeroth in things that use zero-based numbering.

adv

1. (not-comparable)Before anything else; firstly.

   “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.”

   “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.”

2. (not-comparable)For the first time.

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

noun

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

   “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.”

2. (uncountable)The first gear of an engine.
3. (countable)Something that has never happened before; a new occurrence.

   “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.”

4. (countable)First base.

   “There was a close play at first.”

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

   “[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.”

6. (colloquial, countable)A first-edition copy of some publication.
7. (countable, in-compounds, uncountable)A fraction whose (integer) denominator ends in the digit 1.

   “one forty-first of the estate”

8. (obsolete)Time; time granted; respite.

verb

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

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

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

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

name

1. A surname.