Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
✈️ Luxury travel 🛋️ In luxury 📬 Priority mail 🏅 Top rank
first class

first class

3 3.2
The highest rank or grade given for very good work
  • noun
  • /fɜrst klæs/
translation icon : primera categoría
  • " For one thing, how did they know women would ever be admitted to the military academies?" Reedy hadn't been part of the first class to enter, but she graduated with the first class to serve active duty.
  • first class honors
  • graduated in the first class

I have no idea what Magna cum laude is, but first class is the top level of degree that you can get.

Examples

  • Anne Tyler, when she was a 16-year-old freshman at Duke, had been a student in the first class Reynolds ever taught.

    Academic text (2011)

  • The 42 graduates of that first class included seven men and 35 women.

  • My diploma - I graduated with first class honours.

    Valentino (1977)

  • I have a first-class honors degree from one of the finest universities in the world.

    Made in Dagenham (2010)

  • The first class included 40 second-year students working toward their bachelor's degree in education.

    Academic text (2004)

  • This "kid" was Paul Gu, one of the first class of Thiel Fellows.

    Blog text (10)

  • In 1936, when they voted in the first class for the Baseball Hall of Fame, voters elected the five guys who to this day remain the gold standard of baseball: Ruth, Wagner, Cobb, Johnson, and Mathewson.

    Blog text (2)

  • Oxford had a long tradition of making new teaching appointments almost exclusively from among its own graduates, and in those days a good first-class Oxford B.A. was considered to be a satisfactory formal qualification for appointment.

    Academic text (2001)

  • Olly: I GRADUATED WITH A FIRST-CLASS DEGREE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE AND STARTED WRITING.

    The Best Man (2005)

  • I have a first class honors degree from one of the finest universities in the world.

Synonyms

level
vsfirst class
∞ 1.1

A particular stage in a system or idea

applies only to the very top rank, not to any stage or amount
top
vsfirst class
∞ 2.1

The highest position in a job or field

refers specifically to the highest rank within a classification system
grade
vsfirst class
221 2.7

A level on a scale that shows how good something is

refers to the single highest level in a classification rather than any scale level
tier
vsfirst class
76 3.7

A position in a system that shows rank, like first or second

means the single highest rank instead of one among several levels
echelon
vsfirst class
23 7.7

A level of people in a company or organization

is about the single top rank in a classified system rather than any rank

Antonyms

substandard
27 4.4

Not as good as the usual or required quality

lower rank
1 3.5

A position lower than others in a group or at work

How High

first class
3 3.2
mid-level
4.0
lower rank
1 3.5
junior-grade
1 4.1

Surface Forms

first class singular
first classes plural

Morphology

first + class

The meaning 'the highest rank or grade' is directly and compositionally derived from 'first' (preceding/all-important) + 'class' (a category or rank). This adj+noun grading pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows normal English composition, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

First class The noun first class for rank comes from systems that put people or items into class groups and named the best group first. That's why first class now means the highest rank, grade, or quality.