Word.ws English Dictionary

first of all

first of all adverb: firstly; before anything else.

Adverb

first of all (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic, sequence) Firstly; before anything else.
    • Be strong, live happie, and love, but first of all / Him whom to love is to obey, and keep / His great command; […]1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
    • "My dear sir," said Hube in an authoritative manner to the receptionist askancing Thales, "first of all, we aren't tourists. Secondly, this isn't a rat, this is the present embodiment of the spiritual leader of millions of people in India […]1997, Tibor Fischer, The Thought Gang, page 185
    Synonyms:
    first, firstly, first up

first of all meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Odia

first of all in Hindi

before anything else
प्रथमतः prathamtaḥ

first of all in Tamil

before anything else
முதலில் mutalil

first of all in Malayalam

first of all; primarily
ആദ്യമായി ādyamāyi

first of all in Odia

first of all
ଆଗ āga
More languagesFewer languages
first of all in Tagalog
una sa lahat
first of all in Arabic
أَوَّلًا ʔawwalan, قَبْلَ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ qabla kulli šayʔin, بَادِئَ ذِي بَدْءٍ bādiʔa ḏī badʔin
first of all in Vietnamese
trước hết, trước nhất, trước tiên

Synonyms of first of all

Questions about first of all

What does first of all mean?
First of all means firstly; before anything else.
What is first of all in Hindi?
First of all in Hindi is प्रथमतः (prathamtaḥ). See First of all meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is first of all?
First of all is an adverb.

Words near first of all in the dictionary

  1. first night
  2. first nights
  3. first normal form
  4. first notice day
  5. first notice days
  6. first of all
  7. first of never
  8. first off
  9. first officer
  10. first officers
  11. first olive out of the bottle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: first of all (page history and authors); ആദ്യമായി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ଆଗ (Odia) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-first of all.ogg.

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