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FIRST
Definition of FIRST
adjective
Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes 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. Cognate with Scots first (“first”), Dutch voorste (“foremost, first”), vorst (“prince”), German Fürst (“chief, prince”, literally “first (born)”), Limburgish Vürsch (“prince”), Luxembourgish viischt (“anterior; forward”), Vilamovian fiyśt, fjəšt, fjyśt, fjyšt (“prince”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål først (“first”), Faroese and Icelandic fyrstur (“first”), Norwegian Nynorsk fyrst, først (“first”), Swedish först (“first”); also Latin prīnceps (“first, foremost; chief”), Greek παρ’ (par’), παρά (pará, “despite; less”), Mycenaean Greek 𐀞𐀫 (pa-ro, “from”), Albanian parë (“first; chief, main”), Latgalian pyrmais (“first”), Latvian pirmais (“first; foremost”), Lithuanian pirmas (“first; primary”), Bulgarian пъ́рви (pắrvi), пръ́в (prắv, “first”), Czech and Slovak prvý (“first”), Macedonian прв (prv), први (prvi, “first”), Polish piersy, pierwszy, pirszy (“first”), Russian пе́рвый (pérvyj, “first”), Serbo-Croatian пр̑вӣ, pȓvī (“first”), Slovene prvi (“first”), Armenian հարավ (harav, “south”), Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬎𐬭𐬎𐬎𐬀 (paruua, “before, first”), Tocharian A pärwat (“first”), Tocharian B parwe (“first”), Sanskrit पूर्व (pūrva, “before”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
3rd
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
9%
of traced words share this origin (2,584)
How it is built
Its etymology also names Czech, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Russian and 3 more.
Every Proto-Indo-European word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
FIRST in OUTLIER
It has fitted 2 boards so far. 18 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 118, 15 September 2026. The most recent board was Day 127, 24 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 14 days.
First found by a player on Day 26, 15 June 2026.
Built from these letters
FIRST starts with F and ends with T. Sorted, its letters read FIRST - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
3 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start FIRST
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found FIRST?
OUTLIER is a daily word game. One grid, the same grid for everybody, and the words nobody else spots are the ones that pay. This word was on Day 118 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER