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What is "first-hand"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
first-hand
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a first-hand account (=an account of a situation, given by the person who experienced it)
▪ a first-hand account of life in the refugee camps
an eyewitness/first-hand report (=from someone who saw what happened)
▪ Some were beaten and tortured according to first-hand reports from former prisoners.
first-hand experience (=experience gained by doing something yourself)
▪ She has no first-hand experience of running a school.
first-hand experience (=experience gained from doing something yourself)
▪ As a journalist living in Iraq, he had first-hand experience of coping with terror on his doorstep.
first-hand/personal knowledge (=knowledge from experiencing something yourself)
▪ writers who had no first-hand knowledge of war
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
account
▪ This book is a first-hand account of the most tremendous enlargement of astronomical science, written by its foremost pioneer.
experience
▪ This understanding needs to be informed, up-to-date and backed by first-hand experience, not based on hearsay or second-hand impressions.
▪ At one time, physical presence was a prerequisite for first-hand experience.
▪ Piaget suggested that, in performing actions, the child has first-hand experiences of the relations implicit in physical causality.
▪ Millions of people across the world have first-hand experience of what it can do.
▪ Their testimony on it represents crucial, first-hand experience of which those planning for the hospital-based sector must take significant account.
▪ It reflects, often, a first-hand experience of the events it describes.
▪ I had first-hand experience of that.
▪ And now I know from first-hand experience it's the wrong approach.
knowledge
▪ As part of the working crew, they also gained first-hand knowledge about operating a ship.
▪ International research tends to involve analyzing international data, rather than acquiring first-hand knowledge about international operations in other countries.
▪ He may well have had first-hand knowledge that the second half of that statement was true.
▪ Besides, the people of Waterloo had first-hand knowledge of the advantages of public ownership.
▪ In the first place, everyone travels by car and therefore everyone has first-hand knowledge of how awful the roads are.
▪ Two persons with first-hand knowledge said that Wynn worked for and had partial control of the company.
▪ Not many of those present had first-hand knowledge of such rarefied accommodation, but they took his meaning.
▪ In the process, managers gained much of the first-hand knowledge they needed to implement the company's strategies in the region.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Clara knew from first-hand experience that living in a foreign country would be difficult.
▪ This letter remains the only first-hand account of life on the island in the 17th century.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Besides, the people of Waterloo had first-hand knowledge of the advantages of public ownership.
▪ Giving your children a first-hand look at your work can have a significant impact on their career aspirations.
▪ I had first-hand experience of that.
▪ International research tends to involve analyzing international data, rather than acquiring first-hand knowledge about international operations in other countries.
▪ Millions of people across the world have first-hand experience of what it can do.
▪ Such beliefs are born out of first-hand experience and second-hand stories.
▪ This understanding needs to be informed, up-to-date and backed by first-hand experience, not based on hearsay or second-hand impressions.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
First-hand

First-hand \First"-hand`\, a. Obtained directly from the first or original source; hence, without the intervention of an agent; -- of information; as, a firsthand report; firsthand information; firsthand knowledge.

Syn: direct, original.

One sphere there is . . . where the apprehension of him is first-hand and direct; and that is the sphere of our own mind.
--J. Martineau.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
first-hand

also firsthand, "direct from the source or origin," 1690s, from the image of the "first hand" as the producer or maker of something.

Wiktionary
first-hand

a. (alternative spelling of firsthand English)

Usage examples of "first-hand".

I have been fortunate enough to secure the services of an able and distinguished lady whose qualifications happen to be a good deal higher than those required for the post, but who is anxious to obtain a first-hand impression of a coeducational day-school of an advanced modern type.

He is known to the Cabalists there by reputation and by first-hand observation.

He knew the privations and wants of miners first-hand from his experience on the goldfields and was equally at home with colonials, Irish and Chinese.

Zofal had not heard a first-hand account before, and from the corner of my eye I saw servers and Chamberlains stretching their ears at windows and behind shrubbery.

The sheriff had already got wind of what was coming: many eyewitnesses, sworn statements, first-hand accounts -- all of them hostile.

A two-week Adventure is going to run two weeks in that chair, just like if you were sitting in the Cavea in a first-hander berth, only worse.

Kingsway shelter when I found out what was happening out there, and I heard the true story first-hand, because even though the Civil Defence personnel were droppin like flies all round us, reports were still comin through on the wires.

But I'd got into the Kingsway shelter when I found out what was happening out there, and I heard the true story first-hand, because even though the Civil Defence personnel were droppin like flies all round us, reports were still comin through on the wires.

Thompson -- if he were with us & certifiably de-pressurized at this point in time -- could offer some first-hand testimony about how the IRS and the Treasury Department were used, back in 1970, to work muscle on Ideological Enemies like himself.

Would you credit the tales of Captain Clegg if you knew you were hearing them first-hand?

It indicates a dilemma with which the wilful amateur in the first-hand study of conchology is confronted.

These were all experiences she wanted first-hand, not sourly from a disenchanted old brain.

The Ups and Downs of Life is a frank record of Victorian sexuality and socio-sexual mores, written contemporarily with the actual incidents, from first-hand knowledge, and in the language and argot of the day.

Unfortunately, the Caution novels were flawed by Cheyney's lack of first-hand knowledge of the American underworld, but he was on much safer ground with Callaghan, who operates in a milieu that he knew from his own detective work, and in which he had been a regular figure even before the success of his books.

Yet he could not deny the first-hand evidence provided by his guard-father who, as a wingman, had put in a double-six up the line and was now a shrunken shadow in a wheelchair.