Word.ws English Dictionary

first come first served

first come first served noun: a service policy or distributive rule under which access to a good, service, or decision is allocated according to the chronological order of requests or arrivals, so that earlier claimants receive priority over later ones.

Noun

first come first served (uncountable)

  1. A service policy or distributive rule under which access to a good, service, or decision is allocated according to the chronological order of requests or arrivals, so that earlier claimants receive priority over later ones.

Forms of first come first served

alternative formfirst-come first-served
alternative formfirst come, first served
alternative formfirst-come, first-served
alternative formfirst-come-first-served
alternative formfirst come first serve

Questions about first come first served

What does first come first served mean?
First come first served means a service policy or distributive rule under which access to a good, service, or decision is allocated according to the chronological order of requests or arrivals, so that earlier claimants receive priority over later ones.
What part of speech is first come first served?
First come first served is a noun.

Words near first come first served in the dictionary

  1. first class match
  2. first class matches
  3. first classes
  4. First Coast
  5. first come first serve
  6. first come first served
  7. first come, first served
  8. First Communion
  9. First Communions
  10. first conditional
  11. first conditionals

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: first come first served (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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