• (RP) IPA: /fɜːst/
• (America) enPR: fŭrst, IPA: /fɝst/
• (Scotland) IPA: /fɪrst/, /fʌrst/

From Middle English first, furst, ferst, fyrst, from Old English fyrest, from Proto-West Germanic *furist, from Proto-Germanic *furistaz, superlative of Proto-Germanic *fur, *fura, *furi ("before"), from Proto-Indo-European *per-, *pero- ("forward, beyond, around"), equivalent to fore + -est.

Cognate with Northern Frisian foarste, Dutch voorste, German Fürst, Swedish först, Norwegian Nynorsk fyrst, Icelandic fyrstur.

Other cognates include Sanskrit पूर्व and Russian первый.

first (not comparable)

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

   Hancock was first to arrive.

   • 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 ↗:

     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 first day of September 2013 was a Sunday.

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

2. 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., [http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=4SoIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=ph%C3%A6nomena#PPA1,M1 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.

3. Of or belonging to a first family.

   First Cat; First Daughter; First Dog; First''' Son

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

• for
• fore

• French: premier, -unième (used in compounds)
• German: erster, erste
• Italian: primo
• Portuguese: primeiro
• Russian: пе́рвый
• Spanish: primer

first (not comparable)

1. Before anything else; firstly.

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

   I plunged nose first into the water.

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

     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.

2. For the first time.

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

3. (Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, nonstandard) Now.

• See also Thesaurus:firstly

• French: avant tout, en premier lieu, d'abord, premièrement, primo, auparavant
• German: erstens, an erster Stelle, zuerst, als Erstes
• Italian: prima, dapprima
• Portuguese: primeiro
• Russian: во-пе́рвых
• Spanish: primeramente, para empezar

first

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

   He was the first to complete the course.

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

     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.

   • 2020, Jim Pace, Should We Fire God?:

     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, baseball) first base

   There was a close play at first.

5. (countable, British, colloquial) A first-class honours degree.
   • 2004, William H. Cropper, Great Physicists, page 454:

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

   one forty-first of the estate

• French: premier
• German: Erste
• Italian: primo
• Portuguese: primeiro
• Russian: пе́рвый
• Spanish: primero, primo

• French: première
• German: Novum
• Spanish: estreno

first (firsts, present participle firsting; simple past and past participle firsted)

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

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").

first (plural firsts)

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

• As a German - surname, variant of Fürst, Furst.
• As a Jewish surname, from Yiddish פֿירשט, a rendition of the above.
• As a Serbo-Croatian - and Slovenian -, from the noun firšt, a loanword from German and thus related to the above.

1. Surname.