A. adv. phr. At first hand (also at first-hand): From the first source or origin, without intermediate agency or the intervention of a medium; direct from the maker, producer, or original vendor. Also with at omitted.
1732. Fielding, Miser, I. vii. Love. What necessity is there for all that lace on your coat? and all bought at the first hand too, I warrant you.
1811. Sporting Mag., XXXVII. 76. Gave ninety guineas for that, which he might have purchased at first hand for five-and-forty.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes (1858), 219. Such a man is what we call an original man; he comes to us at first-hand.
1852. Dickens, Bleak Ho., xxiv. Asking Phil Squod which he considered the best of those rifles, and what it might be worth, first-hand.
1865. M. Arnold, Ess. Crit., viii. (1875), 337. These remarks on the Jansenists and Jesuits, interesting in themselves, are still more interesting because they touch matters we cannot well know at first hand, and which Joubert, an impartial observer, had had the means of studying closely.
B. adj. (first-hand). Of or belonging to the first source, original; coming direct from the first source and not through an intermediate channel or agency; obtained direct from the producer or original vendor.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), I. 338. I have contented myself till now to take second-hand messengers, and first-hand insults.
1861. M. Pattison, Ess. (1889), I. 31. Dr. Pauli’s study of first-hand sources gives a security to his step and a correctness to his language, which induces the reader to trust him.
1871. R. H. Hutton, Ess. (1877), I. 83. Admit at once that what knowledge you have of such beings is not direct, not first-hand at all, but at best only by representative ideas.
1890. Spectator, 31 May, 765/1. The author has had access to some first-hand information.
