in the first place

1. 1.

   before now

   “why didn't you tell me in the first place?”

   Synonymsearlierin the beginningto begin withoriginally
2. 2.

   of primary import

   “this is primarily a question of economics”

   “it was in the first place a local matter”

   Synonymsprimarily

Questions about in the first place

What does in the first place mean?

in the first place means "before now". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for in the first place?

Close synonyms include earlier, in the beginning, to begin with, originally, primarily. 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 in the first place a common word?

in the first place 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.