Word.ws English Dictionary

firstness

firstness noun: the quality of being first; originality; priority; primacy.

Noun

firstness (uncountable)

  1. The quality of being first; originality; priority; primacy.
    • But it was not swimming and boating again that pleased him. The joy of it was its firstness: never before had a boat rested on the waters of this world; never before had these children seen a human being swim.1983, Orson Scott Card, The Worthington Chronicle, Ace, →ISBN
    • Firstness (in-itselfness, originality) helps to explain logico-cognitive processes and therefore, at once, the formation of signs.2012, Susan Petrilli, Expression and Interpretation in Language, Transaction Publishers, →ISBN, page 140

Origin of firstness

From first + -ness.

Questions about firstness

What does firstness mean?
Firstness means the quality of being first; originality; priority; primacy.
What part of speech is firstness?
Firstness is a noun.

Words near firstness in the dictionary

  1. firstling
  2. firstlings
  3. firstly
  4. firstmost
  5. FirstName BunchOfNumbers
  6. firstness
  7. firstripe
  8. firsts
  9. firsts among equals
  10. firsts and lasts
  11. firstspace

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: firstness (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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