What Is The First Word In The English Language?

According to a 2009 study by researchers at Reading University, the oldest words in the English language include “ I“ , “we“, “who“, “two” and “three“, all of which date back tens of thousands of years.

What comes first in a dictionary entry?

Order of Main Entries

in common usage have the abbreviation spelled out: Saint Anthony's fire. Full words come before parts of words made up of the same letters. Solid compounds come first and are followed by hyphenated compounds and then open compounds.

Which word comes first in the dictionary?

Ask anyone which word comes first in an English dictionary, and they will assuredly answer “ aardvark“ .

What is the first and last word in the English dictionary?

‘Zyzzyva' – a tropical beetle – has become the new last word in the Oxford English Dictionary with the latest quarterly update which added over 1,200 new words, phrases and senses. Until now, the last alphabetic entry in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was zythum, a kind of malt beer brewed in ancient Egypt.

What sort of word is first?

First is also used as a noun to mean the person or thing that is before all others, as in rank. First has other senses as an adjective, adverb, and noun. As an adjective, first describes something as being the original, with nothing else coming before it in time or in a series.

What is the oldest swear word?

Fart , as it turns out, is one of the oldest rude words we have in the language: Its first record pops up in roughly 1250, meaning that if you were to travel 800 years back in time just to let one rip, everyone would at least be able to agree upon what that should be called.

What was the first language on earth?

As far as the world knew, Sanskrit stood as the first spoken language because it dated as back as 5000 BC. New information indicates that although Sanskrit is among the oldest spoken languages, Tamil dates back further.

What is the longest word in the dictionary?

The longest word in any of the major English language dictionaries is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis , a word that refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano; medically, it is the same as silicosis.

What is the main entry word?

main entry word – the form of a word that heads a lexical entry and is alphabetized in a dictionary. citation form, entry word.

What is the first word in the OED?

It only took 16 years, but now the term has officially been added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and it's called “ Manhattanhenge. “

Which word comes last in the dictionary?

Louis's favorite word, “ Zyzzyva ,” which now has the unique distinction of being the OED's last word. It's a noun, pronounced “zih-zih-vah” and defined as “a genus of tropical weevils (family Curculionidae) native to South America and typically found on or near palm trees.”

What is last word?

1 : the final remark in a verbal exchange . 2a : the power of final decision. b : a definitive statement or treatment this study will surely be the last word on the subject for many years. 3 : the most advanced, up-to-date, or fashionable exemplar of its kind the last word in sports cars.

What are the first and last words on a page in the dictionary called?

Also called headword, guide word. ... a word printed at the top of a page in a dictionary or other reference book to indicate the first or last entry or article on that page.

What type of word is first and second?

“First,” “second,” “third,” “fourth” and so on are called “ ordinal numbers ,” terms defining a thing's place in a series (as opposed to “cardinal numbers,” such as “one,” “two,” “three,” etc.).

How do you use the word first?

1. It was the first money that he had ever had. ...
2. First it was the inheritance thing. ...
3. The first cars were called “horseless carriages.” ...
4. He was the first great American painter. ...
5. Still, it was her first car and one with memories packed into it.

What does first stand for?