Firstness

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The quality of being first; originality; priority uncountable

    "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."

Example

More examples

"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."

Etymology

From first + -ness.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.