foremost

CEFRB2

/ˈfɔː.məʊst/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Most important or best; leading all others.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    Coming before (all) others in time.

Examples

  • He is the foremost authority on heart surgery.

  • I told it to my mother first and foremost.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Of the highest rank or position; of the greatest importance; of the highest priority.

  2. Positioned in front of (all) others in space, most forward.

  3. Closest to the bow.

More examples

In context

  • The exhibition features works by the country’s foremost artists.

  • a. 1891, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, in The Shorter Novels of Herman Melville, New York: Fawcett Premier, 1956, Chapter 17, p. 244, a bright young schoolmate of his whom he had seen struck by much the same startling impotence in the act of eagerly rising in...

  • 1769, Oliver Goldsmith, The Roman History, London: S. Baker and G. Leigh et al., Volume 1, Chapter 16, p. 254, He was the best horseman, and the swiftest runner of his time. He was ever the foremost to engage, and the last to retreat;

Synonyms

Antonyms

Quick test

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Question 1 · Quick check

She is considered the blank expert in her field because of her groundbreaking research.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

From Old English formest, fyrmest (“earliest, first, most prominent”), from Proto-Germanic *frumistaz, from the locative stem *fur-, *fr- + the superlative suffix *-umistaz, stem ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pr-. The suffix *-umistaz was a compound suffix, created from the rarer comparative suffix *-umô (as in Old English fruma) + the regular superlative suffix *-istaz (English -est); *-umô in turn is from Proto-Indo-European *-mHo-. Cognate with Old Frisian formest, Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌿𐌼𐌹𐍃𐍄𐍃 (frumists). See for, first and Old English fruma for more. Partially cognate to primus, from Proto-Indo-European *pr- + Latin superlative suffix -imus, from Proto-Indo-European *-mHo-. A comparat...