Which to use
“firm” is a noun and “first” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,693
- “firm” frequency rank
- #81
- “first” frequency rank
- 1774
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | firm | first |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A business partnership; the name under which it trades. | Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest. |
Where the eye mixes firm and first
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: firm is /fɜɹm/ while first is /fɜːst/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1774, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
firm is recorded at frequency rank #1,693, classified as anoun, pronounced /fɜɹm/. first is at rank #81, tagged as anadj, pronounced /fɜːst/.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 1774, this pair ranks #526,687 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of firm vs first
Shared letters: fir. Private to "firm": m. Private to "first": st.
"firm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "first" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC