Meaning

noun the first or highest in an ordering or series

noun the first element in a countable series

noun the time at which something is supposed to begin

originFrom 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. Cognates Cognate with Scots first (“first”), Dutch voorste (“foremost, first”),…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0