Word.ws English Dictionary

first water

first water noun: the highest quality of gemstones, especially of diamonds and pearls.

Noun

first water (uncountable)

  1. The highest quality of gemstones, especially of diamonds and pearls.
    • Who knows in how many unremembered nations’ literatures this has been the Castalian Fountain? or what nymphs presided over it in the Golden Age? It is a gem of the first water which Concord wears in her coronet.1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “The Ponds”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC
    • To be the first water a diamond must be absolutely colorless, very lustrous, and perfectly free from flaws.1880, HB Cornwall, “Gems and Precious Stones”, in WM Patterson, editor, The Growing world; or, Progress of civilization, and the wonders of nature, science, literature and art, interspersed with a...
  2. (broadly) The highest rank or quality or the greatest degree.
    • He's a liar, swindler, and hypocrite—a scoundrel of the first water.
    • Dave’s just an all-round genius—a genius of the first water, gentlemen;[…]1897, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “[Pudd’nhead Wilson] Chapter”, in The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson: And the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins, Hartford, Conn.: American...

Examples of first water in a sentence

  • My heroine is disporting herself at a ball ‘glittering from head to foot with large diamonds of the first water.’1915, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, Anne of the Island, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, →OCLC:
  • This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him.1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Westminster [London]: Archibald Constable and Company, […], →OCLC:

Origin of first water

The term originated in the gemstone trade, where it was used to signify water-like clarity.

Words formed from first water

Questions about first water

What does first water mean?
First water means the highest quality of gemstones, especially of diamonds and pearls.
How do you use first water in a sentence?
My heroine is disporting herself at a ball ‘glittering from head to foot with large diamonds of the first water.’
What part of speech is first water?
First water is a noun.

Words near first water in the dictionary

  1. first violins
  2. First Vision
  3. First War
  4. first watch
  5. first watches
  6. first water
  7. first woman
  8. first women
  9. First World
  10. first world problem
  11. first world problems

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: first water (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-first water.wav.

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