first mover

English

Etymology

The business sense bears connotations of the earliest moves in a game such as chess or checkers (for example, a gambit).

Noun

first mover (plural first movers)

  1. (philosophy) The initial agent that is the cause of all things; the prime mover.
    • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act IIII, scene ii:
      The chiefeſt God firſt moouer of that Spheare,
      Enchac’d with thouſands euer ſhining lamps,
      Will ſooner burne the glorious frame of Heauen,
      Then ſhould it ſo conſpire my ouerthrow.
  2. (business) An early player in a market, such as the first company to commercialize a newly developed technology.

Derived terms

References

  • Dictionary of Philosophy, Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), Philosophical Library, 1962, p. 110.
  • Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989. See "mover".
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