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What is the difference between first and business?

first | business |

In uncountable terms the difference between first and business

is that first is the first gear of an engine while business is something involving one personally.

In countable terms the difference between first and business

is that first is something that has never happened before; a new occurrence while business is an objective or a matter needing to be dealt with.

As an adverb first

is before anything else; firstly.

first

English

(wikipedia first)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) (m), (m), (m), (m), from (etyl) (m), .

Alternative forms

* firste (archaic) * fyrst (obsolete) * fyrste (obsolete)

Adjective

(-)
  • Preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=2 , passage=Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Yesterday’s fuel , passage=The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).}}
  • Most eminent or exalted; most excellent; chief; highest.
  • * 1784 : William Jones, The Description and Use of a New Portable Orrery, &c. , PREFACE
  • THE favourable reception the Orrery has met with from Per?ons of the fir?t di?tinction, and from Gentlemen and Ladies in general, has induced me to add to it ?everal new improvements in order to give it a degree of Perfection; and di?tingui?h it from others; which by Piracy, or Imitation, may be introduced to the Public.
    Alternative forms
    * ; (in names of monarchs and popes) I

    Adverb

    (-)
  • Before anything else; firstly.
  • * , chapter=8
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=That concertina was a wonder in its way. The handles that was on it first was wore out long ago, and he'd made new ones of braided rope yarn. And the bellows was patched in more places than a cranberry picker's overalls.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=29, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Unspontaneous combustion , passage=Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.}}

    Noun

  • (uncountable) The person or thing in the first position.
  • * 1699 , , Heads designed for an essay on conversations
  • Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.
  • (uncountable) The first gear of an engine.
  • (countable) Something that has never happened before; a new occurrence.
  • (countable, baseball) first base
  • (countable, British, colloquial) A first-class honours degree.
  • (countable, colloquial) A first-edition copy of some publication.
  • A fraction of an integer ending in one.
  • Derived terms

    * feet first * firstborn * first-class * first gear * first imperative (Latin grammar) * first of all * first place * first things first * first up

    See also

    * primary

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) (m), (m), (m), from (etyl) (m), (m), . See also (l).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) Time; time granted; respite.
  • Statistics

    *

    business

    English

    Noun

  • (countable) A specific commercial enterprise or establishment.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=68, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= T time , passage=The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them, which is then licensed to related businesses in high-tax countries, is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies.}}
  • (countable) A person's occupation, work, or trade.
  • (uncountable) Commercial, industrial, or professional activity.
  • (uncountable) The volume or amount of commercial trade.
  • * {{quote-magazine, title=No hiding place
  • , date=2013-05-25, volume=407, issue=8837, page=74, magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business , but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.}}
  • (uncountable) One's dealings; patronage.
  • (uncountable) Private commercial interests taken collectively.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Schumpeter
  • , title= Cronies and capitols , passage=Policing the relationship between government and business in a free society is difficult. Businesspeople have every right to lobby governments, and civil servants to take jobs in the private sector.}}
  • (uncountable) The management of commercial enterprises, or the study of such management.
  • (countable) A particular situation or activity.
  • (countable) An objective or a matter needing to be dealt with.
  • *
  • (uncountable) Something involving one personally.
  • (uncountable, parliamentary procedure) Matters that come before a body for deliberation or action.
  • (travel, uncountable) Business class, the class of seating provided by airlines between first class and coach.
  • * {{quote-book, 1992, James Wallace and Jim Erickson, Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, page=154 citation
  • , passage=Gates, who always flew business or coach, didn't particularly like the high air fares Nishi was charging to Microsoft,
  • (acting) Action carried out with a prop or piece of clothing, usually away from the focus of the scene.
  • * {{quote-book, 1983, Peter Thomson, Shakespeare's Theatre, page=155 citation
  • , passage= The business with the hat is a fine example of the difficulty of distinguishing between 'natural' and 'formal' acting.}}
  • (countable, rare) The collective noun for a group of ferrets.
  • * {{quote-book, 2004, , The Jaguar Knights: A Chronicle of the King's Blades, page=252 citation
  • , passage=I'm sure his goons will go through the ship like a business of ferrets, and they'll want to look in our baggage. }}
  • (uncountable, slang, British) Something very good; top quality. (possibly from "the bee's knees")
  • (slang, uncountable) Excrement, particularly that of a non-human animal.
  • Derived terms

    * agribusiness * big business * business as usual * business analyst * business architect * business before pleasure * business card * business class * business day * business deal * business economics * business end * business English * business ethics * business failure * business girl * business intelligence * business lunch * business model * business name * business plan * business practice * business record * business risk * business trip * business trust * business unit * business venture * businesslike * businessman * businessperson * businesswoman * business-to-business * do business * e-business * family business * funny business * get down to business * give someone the business * line of business * mean business * mind one's own business * monkey business * order of business * out of business * personal business * place of business * show business * small business * take care of business * unfinished business * we appreciate your business

    Adjective

  • Of, to, pertaining to or utilized for purposes of conducting trade, commerce, governance, advocacy or other professional purposes.
  • * 1897 , Reform Club (New York, N.Y.) Sound Currency Committee, Sound currency , Volumes 4-5, page cclii,
  • They are solely business' instruments. Every man's relation to them is purely a '''business''' relation. His use of them is purely a ' business use.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=10 citation , passage=With a little manœuvring they contrived to meet on the doorstep which was […] in a boiling stream of passers-by, hurrying business people speeding past in a flurry of fumes and dust in the bright haze.}}
  • * 1996 , Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, American Law Reports: Annotations and Cases , Volume 35, page 432,
  • the fact that the injured party came to the insured premises for solely business purposes precluded any reliance on the non-business pursuits exception (§ 1 1 2[b]).
  • * 2003 , Marvin Snider, Compatibility Breeds Success: How to Manage Your Relationship with Your Business Partner , page 298,
  • Both of these partnerships have to cope with these dual issues in a more complicated way than is the case in solely business partnerships.
  • Professional, businesslike, having concern for good business practice.
  • * 1889 , The Clothier and furnisher , Volume 19, page 38,
  • He is thoroughly business , but has the happy faculty of transacting it in a genial and courteous manner.
  • * 1909 , La Salle Extension University, Business Administration: Business Practice , page 77,
  • and the transaction carried through in a thoroughly business manner.
  • * 1927 , Making of America Project, (w, Harper's Magazine) , Volume 154, page 502,
  • Sometimes this very subtle contrast becomes only too visible, as when in wartime Jewish business men were almost lynched because they were thoroughly business men and worked for profit.
  • * 2009 , (Frank Channing Haddock), Business Power: Supreme Business Laws and Maxims that Win Wealth , page 231,
  • The moral is evident: do not invest in schemes promising enormous and quick returns unless you have investigated them in a thoroughly business manner.
  • Supporting business, conducive to the conduct of business.
  • * 1867 , (Edmund Hodgson Yates) (editor), Amiens'', in ''Tinsley's Magazine , page 430,
  • Amiens is a thoroughly business town, the business being chiefly with the flax-works.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-08, volume=407, issue=8839, page=55, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Obama goes troll-hunting , passage=According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.}}

    See also

    * *