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).

The first day of September 2013 was a Sunday.

I was the first runner to reach the finish line, and won the race.

Demosthenes was the first orator of Greece.

1784: William Jones, The Description and Use of a New Portable Orrery, &c., PREFACE
THE favourable reception the Orrery has met with from Perſons of the firſt diſtinction, and from Gentlemen and Ladies in general, has induced me to add to it ſeveral new improvements in order to give it a degree of Perfection; and diſtinguiſh it from others; which by Piracy, or Imitation, may be introduced to the Public.

It rose to be the first of pastoral regions, and continued until after the gold discovery to be the land of squatterdom.

The French openings decided that satin gowns, suits, wraps and even hats were to be in first fashion this autumn.

First Cat; First Daughter; First Dog; First Son

Clean the sink first, before you even think of starting to cook.

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.

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.

I first witnessed a death when I was nine years old.

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.

This is a first. For once he has nothing to say.

I remember other firsts: how I wussily asked her out the first time, and the first time I told her I loved her.

[Stephen Hawking] […] would go to Cambridge, he said, if they gave him a first, and stay at Oxford if they gave him a second. He got a first.

This motion has been firsted and seconded. I desire to third it.

Sure—er—well, the motion was firsted and seconded that we kick ’em out; […]

Sure, Brother Severn, I second that motion. If you hadn’t got ahead of me I’d have firsted it myself.

First

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