at first
984
1.0
- idiom
:
al principio
- At first, I was nervous about giving my presentation, but I soon became confident.
- at first glance
- seem at first
- appear at first
And it's interesting because at first there was no Rd.
- And it's interesting because at first there was no Rd.
- And so you were at first involved with him, right?
- It looks really shiny and greasy at first, but that's the point.
- And the place we want to look at first is inside the proton.
- That recollection, comforting at first, soon came to torment him.
- And he struggled, like really struggled at first to like, understand it.
- So we, we, we excavated at first on the top layer, noticed.
- Now this sounds very far fetched at first, but consider what plants do.
- He goes to work and at first this guy ignores it.
- So it seems like at first a contradiction, right.
- Yeah, and and here's the thing, I think at first that sounds callous, right?
Examples
-
Lois was afraid of it at first, but not after she got used to it.
Fiction book (1990) -
There was some reluctance at first, given then circumstances.
-
You need to leave at first light, do you hear me?
-
- We're planning to leave at first light.
-
But, yeah, I thought so at first.
-
Even the things you didn't understand at first are becoming clear to you.
-
At first I didn't know why, but now I think I do.
-
"In one of my books, at first an ironworker was the main character," he remembered.
Academic text (2011) -
Actually, we'd seen similar clouds earlier, and at first we thought they were smoke.
Fiction book (1990) -
The unions went along, sometimes reluctantly at first, but eventually in a completely resigned fashion.
Academic text (1990)
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Before anything else or at the beginning
543
2.0
At first, before later changes
395
3.2
At first, before things change
274
2.3
At the start before anything else happens
246
1.4
At the start of something
193
2.5
Happens during the early stages of a process or activity
77
2.8
To say something before you do anything else
52
6.6
Right from the very start
52
3.7
To say which person or thing comes first
From the beginning
From the very beginning
Antonyms
How Early
- Informal
52
6.6
246
1.4
395
3.2
984
1.0
∞
3.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
at + first
The meaning 'in the beginning' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'at' (a temporal/prepositional marker) with 'first' (meaning 'at the beginning'). This simple temporal composition is a common, cross-linguistic pattern and would be readily understood by a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
At first gives a short picture: imagine the first page of a book or standing at the starting line. It shows what was true 'in the beginning' before things changed.