# first mover

> English word · Noun

## Definitions
1. The initial agent that is the cause of all things; the prime mover.
2. An early player in a market, such as the first company to commercialize a newly developed technology.

## Etymology
The business sense bears connotations of the earliest moves in a game such as chess or checkers (for example, a gambit).

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/first-mover