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say it: furst
first is a noun, adjective and adverb meaning "the first or highest in an ordering or series". It is pronounced /ˈfɝst/ — furst. It carries 16 recorded senses.
the first or highest in an ordering or series
“He wanted to be the first”
the time at which something is supposed to begin
“they got an early start”
“she knew from the get-go that he was the man for her”
the fielding position of the player on a baseball team who is stationed at first of the bases in the infield (counting counterclockwise from home plate)
an honours degree of the highest class
United Kingdom
the lowest forward gear ratio in the gear box of a motor vehicle; used to start a car moving
preceding all others in time or space or degree
“the first house on the right”
“the first day of spring”
“his first political race”
“her first baby”
“the first time”
“the first meetings of the new party”
“the first phase of his training”
serving to set in motion
“the magazine's inaugural issue”
“the initiative phase in the negotiations”
“an initiatory step toward a treaty”
“his first (or maiden) speech in Congress”
“the liner's maiden voyage”
ranking above all others
“was first in her class”
“the foremost figure among marine artists”
“the top graduate”
highest in pitch or chief among parts or voices or instruments or orchestra sections
“first soprano”
“the first violin section”
“played first horn”
music
before anything else
“first we must consider the garter snake”
the initial time
“when Felix first saw a garter snake”
before another in time, space, or importance
“I was here first”
“let's do this job first”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for first come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.