first instance
Earliest recorded case
First instance refers to the initial occurrence or earliest example of something: This was the first instance of the disease in the region.
In legal contexts, a court of first instance is where a case is originally tried, before any appeals.
The phrase often appears in formal or technical writing to mark precedent or origin.
- trial courtFirst-level judicial forum
- lower courtTribunal subject to appeal
- beginningInitial stage of something
- ground zeroExplosion's central impact point
- starting pointPlace of commencement
day one · square one · prototype · origin · inception · precedent · initiation · debut · genesis · outset · emergence · experiment · litigation · baseline · commencement · ruling · case law · jurisdiction
- tax courtstax court, tax hearing, tax appeal, tax case, tax dispute
- courtsfamily court, civil court, district court, criminal court, circuit court
- court rulingsrulings, divorce decree, judgments, annulment, verdicts
- legal defensesself-defense, alibi, affirmative defense, insanity defense, insanity
novelty/recurrence
first instancerecurrence
Return of something previous
repetition · reoccurrence · encore · rehash · redux
first, instance, firsts, firstly, instances, instanced, instancing