first in first out
first in first out noun: a method of inventory accounting that values items withdrawn from inventory at the cost of the oldest item assumed to remain in inventory.
Noun
first in first out (uncountable)
- A method of inventory accounting that values items withdrawn from inventory at the cost of the oldest item assumed to remain in inventory.
- A policy of assigning priority to tasks and assignments that have arrived for service first.
- To the onlooker, and particularly to those whose memories go back to pre-grouping days, the modern cavalcade of "V2s" and "B1s" is apt to become a little monotonous; but to any running man the general utility characteristics of these two classes are a perfect godsend at times of exceptional...1949 November and December, O. S. Nock, “Twenty-Four Hours at York—2”, in Railway Magazine, pages 357–358
- A type of queue data structure in which the oldest added items are retrieved first.
- Synonyms:
- FIFO
Synonyms of first in first out
Forms of first in first out
| alternative form | first-in-first-out |
|---|---|
| alternative form | first-in first-out |
| alternative form | first in, first out |
| alternative form | first-in, first-out |
Questions about first in first out
- What does first in first out mean?
- First in first out means a method of inventory accounting that values items withdrawn from inventory at the cost of the oldest item assumed to remain in inventory.
- What part of speech is first in first out?
- First in first out is a noun.
Words near first in first out in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: first in first out (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 in first out.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/first_in_first_out. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
