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PlainSpell

first

UK /fɜːst/adjective, adverb, noun, verb

first is spelled F-I-R-S-T. The wrong spelling people search most is firsr: about 170 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 149 of all searches for the word. First is an adjective meaning “Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest”.

How many letters and syllables are in first?

Letters5: F-I-R-S-T
Syllables1
In writing1,288 times per million words; the 83rd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched3; the most searched, firsr, about 170 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How do you spell first?

First is spelled F-I-R-S-T. 3 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 69 of the searches for first in either form.

firstthe right spelling25,020 searches a month
firsrr in place of t170 searches a month
firtss and t swapped130 searches a month
fisrtr and s swapped70 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is first?

First appears 1,288 times per million words in written English, the 83rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce first?

  • UK /fɜːst/
  • /feːst/
  • /fɛːst/

First has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-first.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with first?

2 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as first from its last stressed vowel (/ɜst/, British pronunciation):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: frist.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of first

  • firstmost superlative
  • 1st
  • furst
  • firsts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • firsting participle, present
  • firsted participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does first mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest.

    Hancock was first to arrive.

  2. 2

    Most eminent or exalted; most excellent; chief; highest.

    Demosthenes was the first orator of Greece.

  3. 3

    Of or belonging to a first family.

    First Cat; First Daughter; First Dog; First Son

  4. 4

    Coming right after the zeroth in things that use zero-based numbering.

adverb

  1. 1

    Before anything else; firstly.

    Clean the sink first, before you even think of starting to cook.

  2. 2

    For the first time.

    I first witnessed a death when I was nine years old.

noun

  1. 1

    The person or thing in the first position.

    He was the first to complete the course.

  2. 2

    The first gear of an engine.

  3. 3

    Something that has never happened before; a new occurrence.

    This is a first. For once he has nothing to say.

  4. 4

    First base.

    There was a close play at first.

  5. 5

    UKcolloquialA first-class honours degree.

  6. 6

    colloquialA first-edition copy of some publication.

  7. 7

    A fraction whose (integer) denominator ends in the digit 1.

    one forty-first of the estate

  8. 8

    obsoleteTime; time granted; respite.

verb

  1. 1

    rareTo propose (a new motion) in a meeting, which must subsequently be seconded.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate first?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of first: Ist.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

First in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpremier, -unième (numeral first – see also 1st), avant tout, en premier lieu, d'abord, premièrement (before anything else)
Germanerster, erste (numeral first – see also 1st), erstens, an erster Stelle, zuerst, als Erstes (before anything else)
Portugueseprimeiro (numeral first – see also 1st)
Spanishprimer (numeral first – see also 1st), primeramente, para empezar (before anything else), primero, primo (person or thing in the first position), estreno (new occurrence)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does first come from?

From Middle English first, furst, ferst, fyrst, from Old English fyrest, from Proto-West Germanic *furist, from Proto-Germanic *furistaz (“first, foremost”), superlative of Proto-Germanic *furai, *furi (“before”), from Proto-Indo-European *preh₂- (“before”), from *per- (“before; first”), equivalent to fore + -est.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after first