firsthand

English

Alternative forms

• first hand, first-hand

Etymology

first +‎ hand

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ænd

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Adjective

firsthand (not comparable)

1. Direct, without intermediate stages.

   firsthand knowledge

   • 1967, Ivan Terence Sanderson, Uninvited Visitors:

     I recently received a firsthand report from an old friend — John A. Keel — who until last year was as skeptical a newshound as I have known.

   • 1986, Wanda Urbanska, The Singular Generation, Doubleday & Company, published 1986, →ISBN, page 86:

     Ours is a generation of aromantics, jaded about matters of the heart — often before gaining firsthand experience.

   • 1990 March, Cliff Gromer, Firsthand Report: Yamaha WaveRunner III, Popular Mechanics.
   • 1997, Chuck Carlock, Firebirds: A Harrowing Firsthand Account of Helicopter Combat in Vietnam, Bantam, →ISBN:

   • 2007 January 2, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Kissinger’s Appearance Revives Memories of Vietnam Era”, in New York Times‎:

     Given Mr. Kissinger’s firsthand experience in the anguishing decisions about withdrawal from Vietnam, the disclosure sparked the inevitable Iraq-Vietnam comparisons that Mr. Bush has assiduously sought to avoid.

   • 2008 December 31, Alan Travis, Richard Norton-Taylor, “Private firm may track all email and calls”, in The Guardian:

     But in his strongest criticism yet of the superdatabase, Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, who has firsthand experience of working with intelligence and law enforcement agencies, told the Guardian such assurances would prove worthless in the long run...

   • 2019 December 2, Eric Lutz, “Trump Lawyer Cites No Due Process as Reason to Sit Out Due Process”, in Vanity Fair‎:

     The same sort of doublethink is evident in the White House’s treatment of firsthand impeachment witnesses.

2. Not previously owned or used; contrasted with secondhand.

   a firsthand copy

Derived terms

Translations

Adverb

firsthand (not comparable)

1. Directly or from personal experience.
   • 1964, Irving Wallace, The Man, page 537:

     Hell and tarnations, I've known them for muddleheads and blockheads half my life, and firsthand, but I sure didn't expect them to take leave of their senses, insulting our office of President, making our Party into a white demagogue's party, slapping the Negro vote in the face.

   • 2002, Jim Puckett, 5:35 from the start, in Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia‎, spoken by Mary Ryan, Basel Action Network, →OCLC:

     In the course of three intensive days in and around Guiyu's four villages, the small investigative team witnessed firsthand what passes for recycling of e-waste in Asia.

   • 2003, Katherine Edgar, “Levant”, in Jennifer Speake, Literature of Travel and Exploration: G to P

     However, the romantic subjective approach persisted, allowing the nontraveling reader the illusion of experiencing the region at firsthand,

   • 2007, Ichabauk Rum, “Handra Delamore”, in Ill: A Novel: Book One, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 63:

     He wasn't a gabber, nor a squawker not a ratfink nor a snitch. He wasn't a whistleblower. He wasn't a gossip. He didn't talk about someone behind their back. Banks knew that firsthand because he had tried on several occasions to get Quinley to talk about other people, and Quinley would never do it. He'd laugh and change the subject.

   • 2007, Elliot D. Cohen, Bruce W. Fraser, The Last Days of Democracy: How Big Media and Power-hungry Government are Turning America into a Dictatorship, →ISBN, page 278:

     In 2000 America witnessed the bare-knuckle tactics of the GOP firsthand in Florida — tactics that included intimidation of black voters, phony felon lists, hired thugs sent by Tom DeLay to stop the recount, a secretary of state who did all that could be done to push the election in Bush's favor, and so on.

   • 2007 January 14, Shivani Vora, “Money Doesn’t Talk”, in New York Times‎:

     Howard Davidowitz, who has studied consumer habits firsthand for decades, said that in the last three years he has seen more cash purchases at luxury boutiques like Louis Vuitton and semiluxury chains like Coach. Mr. Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a retail consulting firm, suspects now that $2,000 handbags and $700 shoes are commonplace, more women pay in fresh bills from the A.T.M. to cover their tracks.

   • 2007, Joe Biden, “This Can't Hurt Us”, in Promises to Keep‎, New York: Random House, published 2008, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 143:

     On my first trip to China after normalization, I saw firsthand the possibility of leveraging Deng Xiaoping’s very real fear of the Soviets to gain specific intelligence aid from the People’s Republic of China.

   • 2013, The Albino Album: A Novel, page 419:

     The other girls were frumpier, more sturdy and heavily made up. These boys must have thought this little darling on my lap a perfect vixen, but I knew firsthand the master of vixenry, and was only lightly impressed by the affections of one of her fairy minions.

   • 2013 February 11, Phil Bronstein, “The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden… Is Screwed”, in Esquire Magazine‎:

     The point man is the only one besides the Shooter who could verify the kill shots firsthand, and he did just that to another SEAL I spoke with.

   • 2013 August 14, Matt DeBow, “Bug Chicks invade library”, in Lebanon Express, 126 years, number 26, page A4:

     “Ladies, look with your eyes, not just your iPhones,” Reddick said. “I know everything is Facebookable, but sometimes you have to experience things firsthand.”

   • 2016, Dwight Lang, “Witnessing Social Class in the Academy”, in Allison L. Hurst, Sandi Kawecka Nenga, editors, Working in Class: Recognizing How Social Class Shapes Our Academic Work, Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, part 2 (Teaching), page 102:

     […] I witness firsthand the difficult "downstream" outcomes (Grusky 2014) of social class stratification in a university setting where approximately 3,400 undergraduates (13% of the undergraduate population) are first in their families to attend and/or graduate from college (first-gens).

   • 2022 October 28, Maria Cramer, “Beaches? Cruises? ‘Dark’ Tourists Prefer the Gloomy and Macabre”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     The growing popularity of dark tourism suggests more and more people are resisting vacations that promise escapism, choosing instead to witness firsthand the sites of suffering they have only read about, said Gareth Johnson, a founder of Young Pioneer Tours, which organized trips for Ms. Joyce and Mr. Faarlund.