first-rate

first-rate (plural first-rates)

1. (military, nautical, historical) A ship of the line in the British navy that had over 100 guns on three gun decks

first-rate

1. (military, nautical, historical) Describing a ship of the line in the British navy that had over 100 guns on three gundecks.
2. (by extension) Exceptionally good.
   • Matthew Arnold

     Our only first-rate body of contemporary poetry is the German.

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 1, in The Celebrity:

     He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me.

• second-rate
• third-rate
• fourth-rate