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First vs Sovereign - What's the difference?

first | sovereign |

As adjectives the difference between first and sovereign

is that first is preceding all others of a series or kind; the ordinal of one; earliest while sovereign is exercising power of rule.

As nouns the difference between first and sovereign

is that first is (uncountable) the person or thing in the first position or first can be (obsolete) time; time granted; respite while sovereign is a monarch; the ruler of a country.

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

    *

    sovereign

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Exercising power of rule.
  • sovereign nation
  • Exceptional in quality.
  • Extremely potent or effective (of a medicine, remedy etc.).
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , III.v:
  • The soueraigne weede betwixt two marbles plaine / She pownded small, and did in peeces bruze, / And then atweene her lilly handes twaine, / Into his wound the iuyce thereof did scruze
  • * (rfdate) Dryden
  • a sovereign remedy
  • * (rfdate) South
  • Such a sovereign influence has this passion upon the regulation of the lives and actions of men.
  • Having supreme, ultimate power.
  • Princely; royal.
  • * (rfdate) Shakespeare
  • most sovereign name
  • Predominant; greatest; utmost; paramount.
  • * (rfdate) Hooker
  • We acknowledge him [God] our sovereign good.

    Derived terms

    * sovereignly

    Synonyms

    * autonomous * supreme

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A monarch; the ruler of a country.
  • * Jefferson
  • No question is to be made but that the bed of the Mississippi belongs to the sovereign , that is, to the nation.
  • One who is not a subject to a ruler or nation.
  • A gold coin of the United Kingdom, with a nominal value of one pound sterling but in practice used as a bullion coin.
  • A very large champagne bottle with the capacity of about 25 liters, equivalent to 33? standard bottles.
  • Any butterfly of the tribe , as the (ursula) and the viceroy.
  • Hyponyms

    * (monarch) king, queen

    Derived terms

    * sovereignty

    See also

    * half sovereign/half-sovereign English words not following the I before E except after C rule