first off

1. 1.

   before anything else

   “first we must consider the garter snake”

   Synonymsfirstfirstlyforemostfirst of all

Questions about first off

What does first off mean?

first off means "before anything else".

What is another word for first off?

Close synonyms include first, firstly, foremost, first of all. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is first off a common word?

first off is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.