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first

adjective · adverb · noun

Simple meaning

Preceding all others in time or space or degree.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

furst
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈfɝst

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Preceding all others in time or space or degree

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

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

  4. Of or belonging to a first family.

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

adverb

  1. Before anything else

    “First we must consider the garter snake.”

  2. Before another in time, space, or importance

  3. For the first time.

  4. The initial time

noun

  1. countable

    Something that has never happened before; a new occurrence.

  2. An honours degree of the highest class

  3. in combination

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

  4. uncountable

    The person or thing in the first position.

  5. uncountable

    The first gear of an engine.

  6. The first element in a countable series

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Preceding all others in time or space or degree

Used this way, first is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Nearby words

  • beginning , more casual, better suited to speech than writing

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use first

  • “The first house on the right.”adjective
  • “First we must consider the garter snake.”adverb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Eminent / highest

first stepfirst halffirst part

Coming

first two

Other combinations

first yearfirst worldfirst placefirst day

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • firstlyadverbDerived adverb

    Before anything else.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • first amendmentnounCompound term

    An amendment to the Constitution of the United States guaranteeing the right of free expression.

  • first and lastadverbCompound term

    Taking everything together.

  • first appearancenounCompound term

    The act of beginning something new.

  • first balconynounCompound term

    First or lowest balcony.

  • first basenounCompound term

    The base that must be touched first by a base runner in baseball.

  • first basemannounCompound term

    The person who plays first base.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • firstbornnounRelated term

    The offspring who came first in the order of birth.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

adjective

Sense: preceding all others in time or space or degree

firstbornbeginningInformalinitialopeningmaiden

adverb

Sense: before anything else

first off

Antonyms

adjective

Sense: preceding all others in time or space or degree

second

adverb

Sense: before anything else

second

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.