🧤 A fielding position ⚾ A baseball base 1️⃣ First step

first base

12 2.4

The first of four points on the field that a runner must touch to score

noun
/fɜrst beɪs/

: primera base

Two outs, with a runner on first base...

Will our speedster reach first base quicker by diving for the bag or running through the bag?

Examples

You just might make it to first base.

Lock Up (1989)
Okay, guys, runner on first base.

Code of Silence (1985)
I want to be on first base.

Babysitters Beware (2009)
You have to touch first base, kid.

The Benchwarmers (2006)
We have a man on first base, one on third.

Squeeze Play (1979)
You wanna give first base a shot?

Major League: Back to the Minors (1998)
I was standing on first base, waiting for one of them boys to knock me in, to bring me home.

Fences (2016)
Then he would head for first base, round the bag, and try to stretch it into a double.

Fiction book (1994)
Tommy trots down to first base.

Fiction book (2002)
The runner safely slid into first base just before the tag was applied.

Surface Forms

first base singular

first bases plural

Morphology

first + base

The components 'first' (initial) and 'base' (a starting point or foundation) combine to yield the sense 'initial stage', so a learner who knows both words can often infer the meaning. However, the usage is metaphorical and rests on a baseball-derived notion of 'base' as a stage; that cultural/specific sense may not be immediately obvious to all B1 learners, making the relation only partially predictable.

Etymology

First base comes from baseball: it is the first of the four bases a runner must touch after hitting the ball, the first safe place on the way to score, so the term simply names that base on the field.