Word.ws English Dictionary

first down

first down noun: the first play in a series that has a maximum of four downs.

Noun

first down (plural first downs)

  1. The first play in a series that has a maximum of four downs.
  2. The act of getting a first down by advancing the ball more than ten yards ahead of the field position where the team took possession.

Forms of first down

pluralfirst downs

Questions about first down

What does first down mean?
First down means the first play in a series that has a maximum of four downs.
What part of speech is first down?
First down is a noun.
What is the plural of first down?
The plural of first down is first downs.

Words near first down in the dictionary

  1. first digits
  2. first division
  3. first divisions
  4. First Dog
  5. First Dogs
  6. first down
  7. first downs
  8. first e-rights
  9. first edition
  10. first editions
  11. first eleven

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: first down (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: “first down.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/first_down. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.