Word.ws English Dictionary

firsthand

UK/ˈfɜːstˌhænd//ˈfɝstˌhænd/

firsthand adjective: direct, without intermediate stages.

Adjective

firsthand (not comparable)

  1. Direct, without intermediate stages.
    • firsthand knowledge
    • I recently received a firsthand report from an old friend — John A. Keel — who until last year was as skeptical a newshound as I have known.1967, Ivan Terence Sanderson, Uninvited Visitors
    Synonyms:
    primary
  2. Not previously owned or used; contrasted with secondhand.
    • a firsthand copy

Adverb

UK/ˌfɜːstˈhænd/US[ˈfɝstˌhɛənd]

firsthand (not comparable)

  1. Directly or from personal experience.
    • Hell and tarnations, I've known them for muddleheads and blockheads half my life, and firsthand, but I sure didn't expect them to take leave of their senses, insulting our office of President, making our Party into a white demagogue's party, slapping the Negro vote in the face.1964, Irving Wallace, The Man, page 537
    • In the course of three intensive days in and around Guiyu's four villages, the small investigative team witnessed firsthand what passes for recycling of e-waste in Asia.2002, Jim Puckett, 5:35 from the start, in Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia, spoken by Mary Ryan, Basel Action Network, →OCLC

firsthand meaning in Kannada

firsthand in Kannada

ನೇರ

Examples of firsthand in a sentence

  • 1990 March, Cliff Gromer, Firsthand Report: Yamaha WaveRunner III, Popular Mechanics.
  • Ours is a generation of aromantics, jaded about matters of the heart — often before gaining firsthand experience.1986, Wanda Urbanska, The Singular Generation, Doubleday & Company, published 1986, →ISBN, page 86:
  • Kissinger’s firsthand experience in the anguishing decisions about withdrawal from Vietnam, the disclosure sparked the inevitable Iraq-Vietnam comparisons that Mr.2007 January 2, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Kissinger’s Appearance Revives Memories of Vietnam Era”, in The New York Times, archived from the...
  • The same sort of doublethink is evident in the White House’s treatment of firsthand impeachment witnesses.2019 December 2, Eric Lutz, “Trump Lawyer Cites No Due Process as Reason to Sit Out Due Process”, in Vanity Fair, archived from the...
  • Banks knew that firsthand because he had tried on several occasions to get Quinley to talk about other people, and Quinley would never do it.2007, Ichabauk Rum, “Handra Delamore”, in Ill: A Novel: Book One, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 63:

All 17 example sentences with firsthand

Synonyms of firsthand

Forms of firsthand

alternative formfirst hand
alternative formfirst-hand

Origin of firsthand

From first + hand.

Words formed from firsthand

Words that rhyme with firsthand

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about firsthand

What does firsthand mean?
Firsthand means direct, without intermediate stages.
What is firsthand in Kannada?
Firsthand in Kannada is ನೇರ. See Firsthand meaning in Kannada.
How do you use firsthand in a sentence?
1990 March, Cliff Gromer, Firsthand Report: Yamaha WaveRunner III, Popular Mechanics.
What part of speech is firsthand?
Firsthand can be an adjective or an adverb.
How do you pronounce firsthand?
Firsthand is pronounced /ˈfɜːstˌhænd/ (UK).

Words near firsthand in the dictionary

  1. firsters
  2. firstest
  3. firstfoot
  4. firstfruit
  5. firstfruits
  6. firsthand
  7. firsthand learning
  8. firsthood
  9. firstie
  10. firsties
  11. firsting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: firsthand (page history and authors); firsthand (Kannada Wiktionary) (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-us-firsthand.oga.

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