What does first mean

Crossword clues for first

first

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

first

I.adjective

COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a first offence

▪ Because it was a first offence, she was not sent to prison.

a first/second/third etc edition

▪ The first edition was published in 1986.

a first/undergraduate degree (=the lowest level of degree)

▪ First degrees usually take three or four years.

administer first aid

▪ This unit teaches students how to administer first aid.

at the first/earliest opportunity (=as soon as possible)

▪ He decided to leave school at the earliest opportunity.

be first in a queue

▪ I wanted to be first in the queue when the doors opened.

be the first to admit sth

▪ I know I’m lazy – I’m the first to admit it!

be the first to complain (=be quick to complain)

▪ He’s the first to complain if he thinks something is unfair.

call sb by their first/full etc name (=use that name when you speak to them)

▪ Everyone called him by his first name.

come first/last etc in a race (also finish first/last etc in a race)

▪ She came third in the race.

come first/second etc

▪ She came first in the 200 metres.

come first/second/third etc in a competition

▪ Stuart came second in the swimming competition.

come in first/second etc

▪ His horse came in second to last.

don’t know the first thing about (=I know nothing about)

▪ I don’t know the first thing about looking after children.

double first

engage first/second etc gear (=put the car into gear)

▪ Nick struggled to engage first gear.

finish first/second/third etc

▪ He finished second in the 100 metres, behind Ben Johnson.

first aid kit

first aid

▪ Being given first aid at the scene of the accident probably saved his life.

first aider

first base

▪ He plays first base for the Red Sox.

first class

▪ We prefer to travel in first class.

first cousin

first degree

first edition

▪ an impressive collection of 19th century first editions

first encounter

▪ His first encounter with Wilson was back in 1989.

first family

first floor

▪ a flat on the first floor

first foray

▪ It will be my first foray into local government.

first fruits

▪ the first fruits of the government’s privatization policy

first gear

first generation

▪ the first generation of hand-held computers

first half

first impressions count (=the impression you make when you first meet someone is important)

▪ When attending a job interview, remember that first impressions count.

first lady

▪ the first lady of jazz, Billie Holiday

first language

first lieutenant

first light

first mate

first name

▪ Her first name’s Helen, but I don’t know her surname.

first night

first offender

first officer

first person

▪ a first person narrative

first port of call

▪ My first port of call will be the post office.

first principles (=the most basic ideas that something is based on)

▪ The researchers went back to first principles.

first refusal

▪ I’ll let you have first refusal on the car.

first responder

first strike

first thing in the morning (=at the beginning of the morning)

▪ She set off first thing in the morning.

First World War

First World

▪ first world economies

first/last on a list

▪ Your name will be first on my list.

▪ Why am I always last on the list?

first/second etc prize

▪ She won first prize in a poetry competition.

first/second etc quarter earnings (=the amount a company earns during one of the four periods of three months that make up a financial year)

▪ The company’s fourth quarter earnings are excellent.

first/second/last post (=the first, second, or last collection or delivery of letters each day)

▪ The last post is at 5.30.

first/second/next etc in line for

▪ He must be first in line for the editor’s job.

first/second/sixth etc form

▪ examinations taken in the fourth form

first/second/third class honours degree

first/second/third etc gear

▪ The heavy traffic meant that we seldom got out of second gear.

given first aid

▪ Being given first aid at the scene of the accident probably saved his life.

have first dibs on

▪ Freshmen have first dibs on dormitory rooms.

have/get first pick (of sth)

▪ She always gets first pick of the videos.

love at first sight (=when you love someone as soon as you meet them)

▪ For Marion and Ron it was love at first sight.

on first reading

▪ The book is quite difficult on first reading.

on the first/second etc attempt (also at the first/second etc attempt British English)

▪ The car started at the second attempt.

put the car etc into (first/second/third etc) gear

▪ He put the car into gear, and they moved slowly forwards.

sb's first/initial impulse

▪ Her first impulse was to turn and walk away.

sb's first/initial instinct

▪ His first instinct was to try and hide.

sb's first/main task

▪ Their first task was to rebuild the wall.

sb's first/second/last etc appearance

▪ This is the band's last appearance in the UK before a 46-date tour of Europe.

sb’s first thought

▪ My first thought was that a bomb had gone off.

sb’s first/18th/40th etc birthday

▪ It’s Mum’s 50th birthday tomorrow.

sb’s first/initial/immediate impression

▪ My first impression was that Terry’s version of the events was untrue.

sb’s first/initial/immediate reaction

▪ His first reaction was to laugh.

sb’s first/native language (=the language someone first learned as a child)

▪ His first language was Polish.

sb’s first/second etc marriage

▪ She had two children from her first marriage.

sb’s first/second try

▪ This is his first try at directing.

take the first/a wrong etc turn (=go along the first etc road)

▪ I think we took a wrong turn coming out of town.

▪ Take the second turn on the left.

the first eleven (=the best team of 11 players)

▪ He plays regularly in the first eleven .

the first interview (also the preliminary interviewformal)

▪ He felt the first interview had gone well.

the first move

▪ She waited for Michael to make the first move.

the first part

▪ In the first part of the book he describes his childhood.

the first priority

▪ The first priority for most unemployed people is obtaining a job.

the first sign of sth (=the first thing that shows something is happening, or something exists)

▪ They ran off at the first sign of trouble.

the first step

▪ The first step in resolving conflict is to understand what the other person wants.

the first teamBritish English (= the team with the best players in a school, club etc)

▪ He has played several times for the first team.

the first time in history (=the first time something has ever happened)

▪ For the first time in history, an American president resigned his office.

the first...heard of (=I had just heard news of trouble for the first time)

▪ This was the first I’d heard of any trouble in the area .

the first/last day of term

▪ On the last day of term we went home early.

the first/second etc draft

▪ The second draft of the agreement contained a few important changes.

the first/second etc quarter

▪ in the last quarter of the 19th century

the first/second etc tier

▪ The second tier of the programme is in-house training.

the first/second half of the century

▪ In the second half of the century, people's wages began to rise.

the first/second half

▪ Profits doubled in the first half of the year.

the first/second/third/fourth quarter

▪ The home side took the lead in the second quarter.

the first/second/third/fourth quarter

▪ The company’s profits rose by 11% in the first quarter of the year.

the original/first version

▪ The original version was in Latin but later editions were in English.

the Premier/First/Second/Third/Fourth Division

▪ a second-division club

tie for first/second etc place

▪ Woosnam and Lyle tied for fourth place on 264.

your first kiss

▪ Where were you when you had your first kiss?

PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

(at) first hand

▪ Eventually divers provided first hand evidence that sea otters use rocks as hammers under water to dislodge the abalones.

▪ Primary data is collected by the researcher at first hand, mainly through surveys, interviews, or participant observation.

▪ Released from prison, Rudd travelled around the country, undertaking surveys and checking information at first hand.

▪ The visit lasted over an hour during which time Neil Kinnock experienced at first hand what carpet manufacturing was all about.

▪ These two boys say nothing to me as they get in, first handing their weapons to their friends.

▪ Work is developed from first hand sources and observed drawing.

▪ Your letters were very welcome, but I still want to hear everything at first hand.

First Class/Second Class Honours

at first blush

▪ At first blush, this discovery seems to confirm his theory.

▪ A.. The results here sound more grim at first blush than they really are.

▪ That may sound strange at first blush.

at first glance/sight

▪ At first glance this will probably sound strange, yet there is a way in which it is also logical.

▪ At first glance, it looked like unalloyed good news.

▪ At first glance, the place seemed deserted.

be first/second/next etc in line to the throne

be on first name terms (with sb)

▪ Voice over Even the governor is on first name terms with the inmates, although the staff still keep a respectful distance.

be placed first/second etc

▪ But it is unwise to assume that parents will inevitably pose a problem when they are placed first.

▪ Fiona Burgess was placed second with Jenny Dwyer improving on past form to gain third position.

▪ Inside the bracket the symbol of the central atom is placed first.

be quick/slow/first etc off the mark

▪ Salad crops, however, are quick off the mark.

▪ This time, they were slow off the mark.

first light

▪ At first light on 7 June I checked the compass.

▪ At the end of a long gash An atrocity through the lace of first light I sit with the reeking instrument.

▪ But until first light, how would he fend off the terrors of the darkness?

▪ In the pale first light of dawn I pulled off beside a lake in the state of Vera Cruz.

▪ Sergio told us that upon entering the rapid his paddle had snapped in half on his first light stroke.

▪ The Caribou took off at first light.

▪ The first light of dawn found Joe in Lucy's basement room at the mews cottage.

▪ We had some two hours sleep that night, then proceeded to align our position before first light.

first night/opening night

first option

▪ Local farmers will get first option to buy land when the military base closes.

▪ The first option is referred to as a world-wide contract, and the second is known as a territory-by-territory contract.

▪ The first option is Shulamith Firestone's.

▪ The first option is to extract water from subsurface permafrost and use that water directly in a nuclear or solar steam rocket.

▪ The first option is to play the ball as it lies.

▪ The first option was politically impractical, as close advisers like Georges Pompidou realized.

▪ The first option was rejected, as in the past it has isolated the small group from the department.

▪ The trouble with the first option, to simply end the war, was that Hanoi would not cooperate.

first resort

▪ A number of District Courts took the position on that issue that first resort should still be had to the Convention.

▪ However, your first resort in any query concerning the verification process should be your systems verifier.

▪ It will be seen that this falls somewhat short of the first resort approach, which the brief does not directly address.

▪ More fundamentally, many courts failed to find a basis for the first resort approach.

▪ The family was almost certainly the first resort.

▪ The role of the state was to be changed so that it would offer help in the last rather than in the first resort.

first thing

▪ Double advanced mathematics first thing in the morning.

▪ I will go to see Ken Hurren first thing tomorrow morning and tell him that Summerchild was working on defence.

▪ In this case, the first thing to go was his appetite.

▪ The first thing I saw when my eyes blinked into focus was an ant marching over a small stone.

▪ The first thing to do is make sure the doors themselves are strong enough.

▪ The first things that were provided were pubs and working men's clubs.

▪ What is the last recollection before losing consciousness and the first thing recalled after regaining awareness?

first-grader/fourth-grader etc

first/second etc year

▪ By his second year, he said, nearly 30 schools were sending him letters.

▪ Early in the first year his behaviour pattern was showing dips and troughs.

▪ Everything about it has helped me to grapple with the intricacies of machine knitting in this, my second year.

▪ He had discussed this throughout his first year but had found no solution.

▪ In her second year, she met Edgar Lintot.

▪ Oryx Energy, like Melville, made the list for a second year in a row.

▪ That first year, by happy accident, the itinerary was set for every ride that has followed.

first/second/sixth etc former

▪ Debbie is a sixth former at Abergele High School.

first/second/third etc place

▪ But I think I got into drama professionally in the first place by accident.

▪ But it's even more of a comfort for baby if he doesn't get wind in the first place.

▪ In the opening 250 race Robert Dunlop stayed well clear of a hectic battle for second place behind him.

▪ In the second place, it involves some intention to maintain that control on the part of the possessor.

▪ The firm which supplied the scaffold blames the boy's parents for letting him play there in the first place.

▪ There is almost a tinge of predestination in footballers' reflections on how they came to sport in the first place.

▪ We never enjoyed them in the first place.

▪ Why had they come to this country in the first place?

get to/reach first base

▪ Compared to this little middle-aged lot, we didn't get to first base!

have first call on sth

have/give sb first refusal on sth

in the first instance

▪ A limited contract for a few sessions, at least in the first instance, is always preferable.

▪ It was not designed as a dwelling place in the first instance.

▪ It will be screened in the first instance for Tory Party workers throughout Britain.

▪ Making contact with the families in the first instance was the most difficult problem.

▪ Smith regarded this distribution as depending in the first instance on relative bargaining strength.

▪ Soviet forces were not, at least in the first instance, to be withdrawn unconditionally.

▪ The decision should be made in the first instance as if it were easy to be made.

in the first place

▪ And there is the question of the relevance of the trading of information in the first place.

▪ But he came in the first place, to something he knew would be far beyond him.

▪ He didn't remember being given that form; they had probably not even given it to him in the first place.

▪ That's how the Richardson's got the Parrot in the first place.

▪ The better approach, in my opinion, is to eat the right foods in the first place.

▪ These women should never have been sent to prison in the first place.

▪ This assumes that banks have surplus liquidity in the first place.

▪ We robbed them of their land in the first place to reward the Annamese who collaborated with us.

leave feet first

make the first move

▪ And in the matter of seduction itself, once more it is the male who is expected to make the first move.

▪ And now Cambridge United, who recently sacked controversial manager John Beck, have made the first move.

▪ He had decided to do nothing further for the present and leave it to Berowne to make the first move.

▪ If they have upset you, perhaps they are hoping you will make the first move.

▪ She was damned if she was going to make the first move.

▪ Those weeks, not seeing him, wondering, too proud to make the first move.

▪ We suggest you make the first move.

▪ We were both trembling with desire, afraid to make the first move.

murder in the first degree

on first acquaintance

▪ Most people are nicer than you think they are on first acquaintance.

▪ Route finding can also be difficult so caution is urged on first acquaintance.

▪ Their interpretability, however, must not be exaggerated; their meanings are not necessarily wholly predictable on first acquaintance.

the First World

the First World War

the first family

the first floor

the first flush of youth/manhood

▪ Now aged 31, Cardus is no longer in the first flush of youth.

the first lady

the first person

which came first, the chicken or the egg?

EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

▪ I've only read the first chapter, but it seems like a really good book.

▪ I read the first chapter and got so scared I couldn't finish the book.

▪ I still remember my first day of school.

▪ Jenkins left his first wife after only two years of marriage.

▪ Laurie's name was first on the list.

▪ Our first priority is to maintain the quality of the product.

▪ Put the first five ingredients into a large pot and simmer gently for an hour.

▪ She had her first baby in 1998.

▪ She made her first appearance on the stage in the 1950s.

▪ the first Monday of every month

▪ The first thing I ever had published was an article for the Boy Scout magazine.

II.adverb

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ VERB

appear

▪ She was an authentic prodigy, first appearing with an orchestra at age 7.

▪ No one was present when life first appeared on earth.

▪ In fact, the regulations are not as stringent as they first appear.

▪ The story of the girl pilot first appeared in a small newspaper in California.

▪ The virus first appeared in Camp Funston, Kansas, in March 1918.

arrive

▪ Bigfoot gets better traction off the line and vaults the moguls, arriving first at the turn.

▪ I thought seventy degrees was cold when we first arrived.

▪ Swanepoel, the pilot whom I had met when I first arrived in the country, tipped me off to that one.

▪ But even Bagwell looks older than when he first arrived.

▪ Most are now inactive, but when they first arrived they were able to hop from place to place in our genome.

▪ When she first arrived, she had thought the place as orderly as a military post.

▪ This time Polly did not break away as she had done when Jack first arrived.

▪ When he first arrived my mother thought he might be an agent of salvation.

begin

▪ They began first with a petition drive.

▪ Sabi first began writing to his daughter Deena, who was born the summer before his arrest.

▪ When my colleagues at Roslin first began exploring genetic engineering in the early 1980s, pharming was not their only target.

▪ His mother first began to laugh.

▪ McLaren first began attracting attention about six years ago when he started contesting boundary lines in the development where he lives.

▪ The father of Gods and Men began first to speak.

▪ In any event, for whatever reason, humanity first began to encounter the virus during the 1960s and 1970s.

▪ This evolved over a four-year period during our Michaelmas celebrations, which is when I first began to make it.

come

▪ Which Judy Garland first comes to mind?

▪ The comfort and convenience of the president himself comes first in the use of all these facilities.

▪ It was up on Hugh's wall when I first came to his house in Shettleston.

▪ She tells me about the offers she had when she first came out here.

▪ The military first came to power in 1962 and abolished all state institutions in 1988.

▪ When Southern blacks first came up to the North, it was conventional for other blacks to take them in.

▪ He first came into government in the 1960s.

▪ I first came across Charlie Tonelli in some Des Moines newspaper clips from back in the 1940s.

encounter

▪ I first encountered the term in the 80s, when it was used to describe computing modules found in many applications.

▪ I first encountered sushi in an expensive specialist restaurant.

▪ He had first encountered it in darkness, with people passing in and out of it.

▪ I first encountered them when I moved to Washington from West Virginia in 1961.

▪ It was the reporters' first encounter with Bradlee on a Watergate story.

finish

▪ They finished first and second at the U. S. Olympic swimming trials Thursday, claiming the two berths in the event.

▪ But in Seoul, Johnson tested steroid-positive after finishing first in the 100-meter final.

▪ Seattle finished first in the West with a 64-18 record and Houston ended up fifth at 48-34.

▪ He finished first at 34 percent.

▪ We go first to the Embassy to photocopy the article David has done for Korotich.

▪ Generally, engineering contracts first go through a selection committee before being forwarded to Huckelberry's office.

▪ The dignitaries, as usual, waited for him to go first.

▪ When Scottie Pippen first went out, they announced that the injury was minor and that no surgery was necessary.

▪ Since neither one of us wanted the older woman, we had to decide who would go first.

▪ For all the new packaging, these diets remain fundamentally unchanged from when I first went to Weight Watchers.

▪ You must first go back to D. C. Stephenson.

▪ I let the other guy go first because he had kids.

hear

▪ Louise said she first heard about her the day you were leaving school.

▪ Bernstein had first heard this in late August from a reporter on an-other newspaper.

▪ Baker was first heard no record in a public jam session of 1941 and quickly established an unbeatable reputation in London clubs.

▪ Robinson first heard the Vocaleers when they came in second at the Apollo amateur night.

▪ No one knows when or how Harrison first heard word of the longitude prize.

▪ The Ravel was made by the composer in 1921, and was, in fact, first heard in this arrangement.

▪ In this chapter we first hear of the savage Queequeg and at first the description makes him seem horrible.

look

▪ We first look at some of the cases that led the Supreme Court to rule on this issue.

▪ I first look for character, whether the individual can inspire trust.

▪ To look forward with acuity you must first look back with honesty.

▪ She leaned back, looking first at Ardley and then the others.

▪ I look first inside her closet.

▪ In order to understand and use this approach, it is necessary to first look at a little of its history.

meet

▪ He had a great sense of humour and when we first met, I was instantly attracted to him.

▪ Frank was no longer the innocent rank-and-filer whom I had first met seven years before.

▪ He was an old sixteen when I first met him.

▪ But certainly, a staff meeting first.

▪ I first met Wells at a weekend party at Max Beaverbrook's country estate in the late 1930s.

▪ Doyle remembers Gabby, an 8-year-old he first met eating discarded ice cream cones in the train station.

▪ I first met him, as I met Askalu, in the highlands 13 years ago.

▪ Several months after we first met, she tells me a revealing and poignant story of her first day at college.

move

▪ We must first move from the theory to an empirically testable model.

▪ Bush's choice of Cheney was therefore widely interpreted as a safety-first move.

▪ When I first moved to New York 30 years ago reasonable restaurants could be found everywhere in the centre of Manhattan.

▪ Mary Ann, married, the mother of two children, moved first.

▪ Equally, the skin is pushed out in the direction that the molecule was first moving.

▪ So to search the entire document, first move the cursor to either its start or end.

▪ When I first moved into my dressing room at the Lyceum, it gave off a heady fragrance of drains and whitebait.

▪ It felt good when we first moved in because everybody was very friendly.

rank

▪ Escondido west of Interstate 15 ranked first in price appreciation as well as sales activity.

▪ M., ranked first with 5. 25.

▪ Then, like now, he was ranked first after Police Commission interviews.

▪ Georgetown was a top seed that finished the season ranked first.

▪ At the time, they were ranked first, second, third, and fourth in the world.

read

▪ It was in Pittsburgh that Mulholland first read about California.

▪ He looked the way I felt when I first read his memo.

▪ I can remember when I first read about her back in the late 1960s in a book on oceanography.

report

▪ The suit was first reported in the Times of London.

▪ The day that they first report for work, new hires get a list of what the company calls key result areas.

▪ The rampage apparently lasted 10 minutes, not three, as first reported.

▪ It was first reported on the West Coast in the 1920s, and in the Eastin Virginiain the 1950s.

▪ The paper first reported today that the partners will meet this weekend.

see

▪ The design of the Web site is what your user will see first, and what will define their experience.

▪ And when I first saw the title, my reaction was to laugh out loud.

▪ I first saw Brookside on Channel 4's opening night, 2 November 1982.

▪ The spot above the river where his son and the Marines first saw each other.

▪ Steve Coogan was 10 when he first saw Wilson in the flesh.

▪ I first saw him when he was about eight, a child with a beautiful face and long, black eyelashes.

▪ It was first seen publicly in the sixth Impressionist Exhibition in 1881, when its astonishing realism shocked many contemporary critics.

▪ Linda first saw Red at a middle school volleyball game.

start

▪ When and how priests first started is lost to history.

▪ Particularly when programs are first starting out, these kinds of written arrangements help establish the ground rules.

▪ Twenty-five years on from when I first started, things really aren't that much better.

▪ And yet when you are first starting out as an entrepreneur, a detour is awfully hard to resist.

▪ It was here that I first started to get a closer feel for what the military operations were.

▪ Mainline medicine learned this the hard way when it first started to use anesthetics.

step

▪ Finding or remembering an evocative scent is a good first step.

▪ That is the necessary first step.

strike

▪ The enemy, therefore, almost always struck first.

▪ The flagship, the Association, struck first.

▪ Paris struck first, but Menelaus caught the swift spear on his shield, then hurled his own.

try

▪ When I first tried to envision this tiny woman trying to hold off a mob of angry right-wingers, I almost laughed.

▪ Just like Walsh, too, Robinson first tried his hand at broadcasting.

▪ Thoreau first tried to make a career of teaching school and then wrote essays, which almost no one bought.

▪ The father first tried to shake hands with her.

▪ For example, he suggests that the young Clemens grew miserable when he first tried living full-time as Mark Twain.

▪ Dancy allegedly first tried to run down the officer with his car, then drove away.

▪ When I first tried to work out of my home, my discipline crumbled.

▪ Medical treatment invariably is tried first.

EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

▪ "Shall we go for some lunch?" "Yeah, great, let me just make a quick call first."

▪ First, Jack would not allow it, and second, I don't think Mom would like it much either.

▪ Add the onions and garlic first, then the mushrooms.

▪ I'll help you with your homework, but first let me finish the dishes.

▪ I always read the sports page of the newspaper first.

▪ It's mine - I saw it first.

▪ Johnson finished first in the 100-meter dash.

▪ Shall we fill in the forms first, and get that out of the way?

▪ Shall we go out now, or do you want to eat first?

▪ Simmons' book was first published in Australia last year.

▪ We first became friends when we were teenagers.

▪ When I first heard about what happened, I thought it was a joke.

▪ Who's going first?

▪ You can borrow the book, but first I've got to find it.

EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS

▪ I first met Bobby when he enrolled in a summer program I had developed for underprepared students.

▪ It was here that I first started to get a closer feel for what the military operations were.

▪ Meanwhile, sociologists quote statistics that suggest that women who establish careers first have relatively small probabilities of getting married.

▪ This strategy has worked best for those who were first in the cyber economy, the pioneers of the landless continent.

▪ We have to think about that first, the Marlins second.

▪ When she first became pregnant, she contemplated an abortion, but eventually gave birth.

▪ Yet it was designed in the 1970s, and first flew in 1981; the technology is rooted in those days.

III.noun