first quarter
20
3.2
- noun
- Specialized
:
cuarto creciente
- Thirty-eight percent of the meetings during the first quarter of the year occurred before or after the school day.
Examples
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What they failed to understand was that the first quarter is not tied to the same rules.
Blog text (15) -
From then through the first quarter of 2009, more than 250,000 jobs were lost in the sector.
Blog text (15) -
The moon, our moon, in the first quarter.
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Tourism employment peaked at nearly 6 million jobs in the first quarter of 2008.
Blog text (15) -
Sales are up almost 20 percent in the first quarter, and we just landed a major trucking company
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The Wildcats' offense came out slow in the first quarter, while the defense came out on fire.
Blog text (14) -
Duke responded with two touchdowns to end the first quarter, up 14-7.
Blog text (1) -
The Chiefs have been outscored 51-6 in the first quarter this season.
Blog text (14) -
Portugal's economy shrank 0.7 percent in the first quarter, sending the economy back into recession.
Blog text (14) -
Tonight, the Moon is in its first quarter, shining brightly in the night sky.
Synonyms
1
2.6
A time when half of the Moon appears lit by the Sun
Antonyms
- Specialized
4
4.1
Half the Moon is lit when it comes after a full moon and before a new moon
How Illuminated
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'first' (initial) + 'quarter' (one fourth) yields the initial one-fourth phase of a cycle, so a learner who knows both words and the context ('of the Moon') can infer it refers to the lunar phase after the new moon. This numeric/fractional construction is common across languages and follows ordinary English composition patterns, making it readily comprehensible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
First quarter comes from watching the Moon: when the Moon has moved about a quarter of the way around Earth it looks 'half' lit in the sky. So the name refers to that 'stage' of the Moon and is used today to mean that point in the Moon's cycle.