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first-order

British

adjective

logic quantifying only over individuals and not over predicates or clauses: first-order predicate calculus studies the logical properties of such quantification

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

But the case for a republic appears to be a first-order concern to fewer MPs now than it has been in the past.

From BBC • Feb. 24, 2026

Federal Reserve governor Stephen Miran said the dollar would need to register steeper fall than it already has for it to become a first-order issue that would affect consumer inflation.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 9, 2026

That picture is far from certain—“a first-order guess,” Hurley-Walker calls it.

From Science Magazine • Dec. 3, 2024

Its focus is on the first-order effects of the individual proposals on federal income and spending, without paying much attention to the dynamic economic effects of those policies.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 8, 2024

So a first-order light is built up of rows on rows of prisms so arranged that the light will be refracted from every direction to one point.

From The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers by Rolt-Wheeler, Francis

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023