Word.ws English Dictionary

erst

/ɜːst/US/ɝst/

erst adjective: first.

Adjective

erst (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete) First.

Adverb

erst (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete) First of all, before (some other specified thing).
    • Consider what I erst have been and what thou seest me now:1567, Arthur Golding, Ovid's Metamorphoses, book 2, line 691
  2. (obsolete) Sooner (than); before.
    • Thenne he sente the varlet ageyne and bad hym telle Kyng Mark that I wille come as soone as I am hole / for erste I maye doo hym noo good
      "Then he sent the varlet again, and bade him: Tell King Mark that I will come as soon as I am whole, for erst I may do him no good. "1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “xxviij”, in Le Morte Darthur, book X
  3. (archaic, poetic) Formerly, once, erstwhile.
    • When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
      Which erst from heat did canopy the herd1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 12”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC

Forms of erst

alternative formarste
alternative formyerst

Origin of erst

From Middle English erste, from Old English ǣresta (“first”), from Proto-West Germanic *airist (“earliest, first”), equivalent to ere + -est. Cognate with North Frisian iarst, iáárs, jarst, jest (“first”), West Frisian earst (“first”), Dutch eerste (“first”), German erste (“first”).

Words formed from erst

Words that rhyme with erst

9 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about erst

What does erst mean?
Erst means first.
What part of speech is erst?
Erst can be an adjective or an adverb.
How do you pronounce erst?
Erst is pronounced /ɝst/ (US).

Words near erst in the dictionary

  1. Erskineville
  2. Erskins
  3. ERSOU
  4. ERSP
  5. ERSPs
  6. erst
  7. erster
  8. ersters
  9. Erstfeld
  10. erstwhile
  11. erstwhiles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: erst (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “erst.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/erst. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.