firstnessn.

a1425 J. Wyclif Sel. Eng. Wks. (1869) I. 172 (MED) Oo firstnesse of love shulde we have to us silf, and to oure fadir and oure modir.

1595 F. Bunny Suruey Popes Supremacie i. 40 This word in latine primatus which wee now call Supremacie, but indeede doth signifie (that I may make such a word) Firstnesse.

1627 W. Sclater Briefe Expos. 2 Thess. (1629) 106 This firstnes, or precedence of Apostasie, to the day of Christ.

1659 H. Hammond Dispatcher Dispatched Pref. p. x When I give..a firstnesse of precedency and Presidency to the Pope.

1675 T. Brooks Golden Key 261 Oh! the firstness, the freeness..the matchlessness of Christ's love to fallen man, in becoming man.

1708 Dissenting Laity against Clamours of Highflying Clergy 49 When he has sufficiently prov'd Metropolical Provincial Diocesan Bishops, in a firstness of power, to be of divine institution.

1861 Ladies' Repository Mar. 129/2 The people do not want originality in its current sense, namely, of newness or firstness.

1895 L. Clifford Flash of Summer vii Daffodils..—the bell-like single ones: and their tender firstness appealed to her.

1924 Glasgow Herald 4 Sept. 4 A first novel,..with a freshness and spontaneity not always synonymous with ‘first-ness’ in novel-writing.

1927 Blackwood's Mag. June 828/2 An odd kind of distinction should halo the person who is the very first to see something or to do something which hitherto humanity has not seen or done... The value of these ‘firstnesses’ is by no means equal.

1990 R. Hodge Lit. as Disc. iv. 76 Word order in English is a regular way of encoding meanings. Firstness signifies (among other things) the subject of a sentence, the agent of the verb.