Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definitions: First-rate |
First-rateAdjective1. (informal) of the highest quality; "an ace reporter"; "a crack shot"; "a first-rate golfer"; "a super party"; "played top-notch tennis"; "an athlete in tiptop condition"; "she is absolutely tops". Adverb1. Quite well; "she doesn't feel first-rate today". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "first-rate" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1613. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Tips from 1870 | Usage: First-rate. An article may be rated in quality as first, or second, or third. If it rates first, it may be called a first-rate article. The word is properly used as an adjective, but should not be employed as an adverb, as in the sentence, "He sings first-rate." Source: Slips of Speech. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
In the original rating system from the 1670s, first-rates were ships of exactly 100 guns, but as time passed, ships were built with more guns, and they too were called first-rates.
Although nominally very powerful, first-rates tended to be slow and invariably expensive to operate. For stability, the lowest gundeck had to be very close to the water, and in anything but calm water the gunports had to be kept closed, rendering the entire deck useless. As a result, the few first-rates were typically reserved as commanding admirals' flagships.
These being the most powerful ships of the navy, it was common to compare them with the navies of other nations, and frequently one sees the largest ships of those navies being referred as first-rates, even though only the Royal Navy used the formal six-step rating system.
The most famous (and only surviving) first-rate is HMS Victory, Admiral Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar.
A J.M.W. Turner watercolor from 1818 entitled A First Rate Taking in Stores is displayed at the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, and visible online.
First-rate is also a common adjective used to mean something of the best or highest quality available.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "First-rate."
Synonyms: First-rateSynonyms: ace (adj), crack (adj), super (adj), tiptop (adj), topnotch (adj), tops(p) (adj), very well (adv). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Combatant | Man-of-war; destroyer; submarine; minesweeper; torpedo-boat, torpedo-destroyer; patrol torpedo boat, PT boat; torpedo-catcher, war castle, H.M.S.; battleship, battle wagon, dreadnought, line of battle ship, ship of the line; aircraft carrier, carrier. flattop; helicopter carrier; missile platform, missile boat; ironclad, turret ship, ram, monitor, floating battery; first-rate, frigate, sloop of war, corvette, gunboat, bomb vessel; flagship, guard ship, cruiser; armored cruiser, protected cruiser; privateer. |
Importance | In the front rank, first-rate; superior; considerable; (great); marked; Verb: rare. |
Inexpedience | Superexcellent; of the first water; first-rate, first-class; high-wrought, exquisite, very best, crack, prime, tiptop, capital, cardinal; standard; (perfect); inimitable. |
Superiority | Supreme, greatest, utmost, paramount, preeminent, foremost, crowning; first-rate; (important), (excellent); unrivaled peerless, matchless; none such, second to none, sans pareil; unparagoned, unparalleled, unequalled, unapproached, unsurpassed; superlative, inimitable facile princeps, incomparable, sovereign, without parallel, nulli secundus, ne plus ultra; beyond compare, beyond comparison; culminating; (topmost); transcendent, transcendental;plus royaliste que le Roi, more catholic than the Pope |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: First-rate |
| English words defined with "first-rate": ace, A-one ♦ capital, coarse, common, Cordon bleu, crack ♦ first-rater ♦ super, Supernacular ♦ topnotch, tops ♦ uncouth, unimpeachably, unquestionably ♦ very well, vulgar. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "first-rate": Alcimedon ♦ First-rate ♦ Gilt-edge Investments. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "first-rate": Supernacular. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | If he thinks you're a jerk, I'm sure he thinks you're a first-rate jerk. (The American President; writing credit: Aaron Sorkin.) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Oliver Wendell Holmes | Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if it has common sense on the ground floor. |
Thomas de Quincey | As the inventor of murder, and the father of art, Cain must have been a man of first-rate genius. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Travel | Kenya | Lodging: Kenya has first-rate hotels in its major cities, and a range of lodges in the game parks. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "First-rate" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 98.08% of the time. "First-rate" is used about 104 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 98.08% | 102 | 32,309 |
| Noun (singular) | 1.92% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 104 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Language | Translations for "first-rate"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | oivallinen (excellent, fine, splendid), ensiluokkainen (first choice, first class, prime). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
French | marchandises de première qualité (first-rate goods). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
German | erstklassig (blue chip, choice, class, classy, crack, first class, first rate, first-class, highclass, prime, quality, tip top). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | első osztályú (first chop, top notch, topgallant). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | syahdu (excellent). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 極上 (finest quality, the best). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | "くじょう (finest quality, the best). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | irst-ratefay первоклассный (bang-up, capital, champion, classy, first class, first rate, gilt-edged, hunky-dory, lummy, pucka, pukka, splendid, sterling, super, tiptop, top flight, topflight, top-flight, top-hole, top-line, topnotch, top-notch, top-quality). (various references) förstklassig (crack, Dandy, first class, first rate, first-class, prime, pukka, quality, sterling, tiptop, top flight), prima (first and seconds, first chop, first rate, prime, slap up, slap-up, top-hole, topping). (various references) rất tốt (rare), rất cừ các đại cường quốc, loại nhất (first-chop, first-class, pucka, pukka, pukkah), hạng nhất (high-class, top-hole). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-f-i-r-r-s-t-t" | |
-1 letter: fritters, straiter, tarriest. | |
-2 letters: artiest, artiste, artsier, attires, fairest, fattier, fatties, fitters, fraters, fritter, iratest, rafters, ratites, ratters, rattier, restart, ritters, starter, strafer, striate, tarries, tarsier, tastier, territs, titfers. | |
-3 letters: afrits, afters, airers, airest, arrest, artier, artist, attire, fairer, farers, faster, fatter, ferias, fiesta, firers, fitter, fraise, frater, friars, friers, fritts, irater, rafter. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-f-i-r-r-s-t-t" | |
+2 letters: afterbirths, intergrafts, trifurcates. | |
+3 letters: fraternities. | |
+4 letters: interstratify, reforestation. | |
+5 letters: infrastructure, reforestations, refractivities, tetrafluorides, transferential, transformative, ultrafiltrates. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)46 69 72 73 74 2D 72 61 74 65 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000110 01101001 01110010 01110011 01110100 00101101 01110010 01100001 01110100 01100101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)F i r s t - r a t e |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0046 0069 0072 0073 0074 002D 0072 0061 0074 0065 |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)40758485861584678671 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Quotations: Familiar 7. Quotations: Non-fiction 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Anagrams 11. Orthography 12. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
