adv. [f. as prec. + -LY2.]
1. In the first place, before anything else, first.
Used only in enumerating heads, topics, etc. in discourse; and many writers prefer first, even though closely followed by secondly, thirdly, etc.
The word is not in Johnson’s Dict. Smart (1846), s.v. First has the note: ‘Some late authors use Firstly for the sake of its more accordant sound with secondly, thirdly, etc.’
c. 1532. Dewes, Introd. Fr., in Palsgr., 928. Fyrstly, premierment.
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 216.
| Walke thou fyrstly, walke thou lastly: | |
| Walke in the walke that standeth fastly. |
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., 393. The Adverb, Firstly, secondly, thirdly.
1723. Lady M. W. Montagu, Lett. (1893), I. 466. A propos of ballads, a most delightful one is said or sung in most houses about our dear beloved plot, which has been laid firstly to Pope, and secondly to me, when God knows we have neither of us wit enough to make it. Ibid. (1726), I. 495. Firstly, she was pleased to attack me in very Billingsgate at a masquerade, where she was as visible as ever she was in her own clothes.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., iv. ‘The consequence thereof, beloved,’ said Bothwell, in the same tone of raillery, ‘will be, firstly, that I will tweak thy proboscis or nose.’
1847. De Quincey, Sp. Mil. Nun, § 5. First (for I detest your ridiculous and most pedantic neologism of firstly).
1857. Gladstone, Oxf. Ess., 1. These objects are twofold: firstly, to promote and extend the fruitful study of the immortal poems of Homer; and secondly, to vindicate for them, in an age of discussion, their just degree both of absolute and, more especially, of relative critical value.
† 2. In the beginning, originally. Obs.–1
1591. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. V. (1621), 108.
| (Self-guiltless) shed his blood, by’s wounds to save-vs, | |
| And salue the wounds th’ old Serpent firstly gave-vs. |
3. quasi-sb. The word firstly used in making subdivisions of a subject.
1698. Farquhar, Love & Bottle, IV. ii. They hate to hear a fellow in Church preach methodical Nonsense, with a Firstly, Secondly, and Thirdly: but they take up with some of our modern Plays in their Closet, where the Morallity must be Devilish Instructive.
1739. Goldsm., Polite Learning, Lit. Decay. The most diminutive son of fame or of famine has his we and his us, his firstlies and his secondlies, as methodical as if bound in cow-hide and closed with clasps of brass.
1846. Lowell, Lett. (1894), I. 113. In the next place (turn back a page or two and you will find that I have laid down a ‘firstly’), if I have any vocation it is the making of verse.
