a. [f. FIRST adv. + BORN a.]

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  1.  That is born first, eldest.

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1382.  Wyclif, Luke ii. 7. Sche childide her firste born sone, and wlappide him in clothis, and puttide him in a cracche, for ther was not place to hym in the comyn stable.

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1413.  Lydg., Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton, 1483), III. viii. 55. So haue they ben forfaren with indscrete sorowe, as was cursyd Cayn, the fyrst borne child.

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1611.  Bible, Deut. xxi. 15–6. If the first borne sonne be hers that was hated: Then it shall be, when he maketh his sonnes to inherite that which hee hath, that he may not make the sonne of the beloued, first borne, before the sonne of the hated, which is indeed the first borne.

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1847.  Mrs. A. Kerr, trans. Ranke’s History of Servia, 250. He often called him ‘Son’; saying, ‘Alexa, his first-born son, was not dearer to him,’ and thus contrived to win him over entirely to his interests.

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  transf.  1784.  Cowper, Task, IV. 700.

        My very dreams were rural, rural too,
The first-born efforts of my youthful muse.

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1807.  Crabbe, Newspaper, 449.

        Here you may nameless print your idle rhymes,
And read your first-born work a thousand times.

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  b.  nonce-use. That is the right of the first-born.

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1770.  Goldsm., Des. Vill., 256.

        Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway.

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  2.  absol. (quasi-sb.)

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a. 1340.  Hampole, Psalter, cxxxiv. 8. He smote þe first borne of egipt fro man til best.

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1587.  Golding, De Mornay, vi. 71. He calleth it the Booke wherein the essences of all things that are in ye whole world are written and printed; the perfect Patterne of the World; the Daysonne, that is to be seene but only of the Mynd; the Prince of the Angelles; the Firstborne of God.

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1667.  Milton, P. L., I. 487.

        Jehovah, who in one Night when he pass’d
From Egypt marching, equal’d with one stroke
Both her first born and all her bleating Gods.

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1712.  Steele, Spect., No. 263, 1 Jan., ¶ 1. Camillus and his first-born dwell together.

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1837.  Lytton, E. Maltrav., III. iv. Teresa was trying to teach her first-born to read.

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  transf.  1830.  Tennyson, Ode Mem., 92.

                  The love thou bearest
The first-born of thy genius.

17

  b.  rarely as sb. with plural ending.

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1866.  J. H. Newman, Gerontius, ii. 21.

        All praise to Him, at whose sublime decree
    The last are first, the first become the last;
By whom the suppliant prisoner is set free,
    By whom proud first-borns from their thrones are cast.

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