{
  "id": "first.order",
  "term": "first",
  "sense": "order",
  "pos": "adjective",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 4,
  "arena": "first",
  "domain": "emergence",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "the thing that is before every other thing in a set",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "time.dimension",
      "difference.relation",
      "sets.grouped"
    ],
    "interaction": "Applying the before relation of time to distinguish one thing from all others in a set creates an earliest position.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "firstness",
      "temporal precedence within a collection",
      "uniqueness by ordering"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Big Bang initiated the expansion of the universe 13.8 billion years ago, preceding all known cosmic events.",
      "domain": "physics"
    },
    {
      "text": "In 2008, the first Bitcoin block, Block 0, was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto, starting the blockchain ledger.",
      "domain": "computing"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Magna Carta, sealed in 1215, stands as the first constitutional limitation on the power of the English monarchy.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "time.dimension",
      "note": "abstracts time.dimension relationship of beforeness to order position.",
      "type": "abstracts"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "cusp.threshold",
    "double.quantity",
    "front.spatial",
    "homepage.web",
    "monday.temporal",
    "original.first",
    "primary.importance",
    "wealth.range"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "first"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "factual",
      "note": "Added 'sets.grouped' as a constitutive component because the definition's reference to 'a set' implies a grouped collection. Without it, 'first' cannot be coherently identified among unspecified other"
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-first.order"
}