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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.

Currently, first-order risks look largely similar to 2022 at the time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when war policy exposure among Lloyd’s companies was minimal, he says.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 3, 2026

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

The team investigated 151 rivers around the Tibetan plateau and demonstrated that glaciers exert a first-order control on fluvial sediment yield, especially with high precipitation and in high glacier-cover basins.

From Science Daily • Dec. 4, 2024

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

From Science Magazine • Dec. 3, 2024

A first-order issue is how can we augment or improve the use of existing military capability should it be required.

From Shock and Awe — Achieving Rapid Dominance by Wade, James P.

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