first linen.adj.

1663 S. M. de Vilhena Relation Great Success of King of Portugal's Army 4 Alphonso Tuntado de Mendosa with the first line of the Vangard,..got up by the most difficult part of the Mountain, to assault the Regiments of Foot.

1700 tr. F. P. Dalairac Polish Manuscripts: Secret Hist. John Sobieski III iv. 149 Their Squadrons thus rank'd, can the better support the First Line, when 'tis a little shatter'd.

1704 Duke of Marlborough in London Gaz. No. 4045/2 With..the Foot of the First Line, I passed the Lech.

1801 C. James New Mil. Dict. at Line In order that the first line..may..not endanger the disposition of the second line, by precipitately crowding upon it.

1876 G. E. Voyle & G. de Saint-Clair-Stevenson Mil. Dict. (ed. 3) 231 An army, when drawn up for battle, should be formed in three distinct lines; the first line to commence the battle, the second, to support it, and to fill up the gaps; the third..as a reserve.

1914 H. M. Buist Aircraft in German War 78 They are accounting for such large numbers of the enemy's first line of airmen.

1941 Life 7 July 46/2 Covered by the rifles and machine guns of the first line, the support line of boats now comes up with heavier weapons.

1995 V. Chandra Red Earth & Pouring Rain (1996) 109 We pushed our gun forward..till we were in that first line, that extreme border where steel raised fire from other steel.

1897 Daily News 1 June 3/2 To establish themselves once more in their former first line positions.

1930 Flight 24 Jan. p. ii First-line machines, ready for war, over 1,000; reserves, about 800; total, 1,800.

1942 E. Waugh Put out More Flags 246 Alastair's battalion found itself overnight converted from a unit in the early stages of training into first line troops.

1991 U.S. News & World Rep. 18 Feb. 25 More than 147 Iraqi aircraft, including 121 fighters such as first-line MiG-29 Fulcrums..have taken refuge at Iranian airfields.

1919 Lancet 8 Mar. 367/1 Consequently, where we attempt to apply the lessons of the war to civil surgery it will be usually be advisable to adopt, in conjunction with ‘first line’ surgery, the splinting of the ‘second line’.

1940 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 17 Aug. 242/1 The various aspects of first-aid-post work, including types of air raid injury, first line surgery, casualty transportation, etc.

1967 Canad. Med. Assoc. Jrnl. 18 Nov. 1306/1 In conclusion, this book is directed at the ‘first-line’ physician and is of considerable value.

1982 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 22 May 1508/2 In the past few years..vancomycin has reemerged as a valuable antibiotic in three clinical settings: endocarditis, multiresistant staphylococcal infections, and as the first-line treatment of pseudomembranous colitis.

1990 R. Critchfield Among British ii. 104 We see biosensors being very much a common first-line situation in health care. Certainly by the late 1990s people will be accustomed, I think, to monitoring their own health on a routine basis.

2009 Daily Tel. 1 Dec. 2/4 We also know there are still big problems with access to treatments that are ‘first line’ in other parts of the world.

1938 Fortune Sept. 106 (advt.) The General Dual 8 brings all these to owners of popular-priced cars for less than a dollar more than they'd pay for an ordinary first-line tire!

1945 Pop. Sci. Monthly Aug. 48K (advt.) Tires... Nationally known makes, firstline quality.

1978 Billboard 12 Aug. 94/2 The lower priced deletion often introduced a buyer with less spending money to an act he could not ordinarily buy as firstline merchandise.

1980 Crisis Dec. 550/2 Neither school will be able to fill its class with firstline applicants.

1984 G. Sandler Baltimore Glimpses Revisited 115 The Gayety on The Block was Baltimore's only first-line burlesque house from about the late 1920's through the '60's.

2003 V. Bogdanov All Music Guide to Soul 270/2 He wasn't a first-line star, especially without Dee Dee, but he was a good second-line artist.

1957 D. T. Clark & B. A. Gottfried Dict. Business & Finance 228/2 Middle management, in general, the group or class of junior executives and senior supervisory personnel in the direct line of authority and communications between the top levels of management and the first line supervisory personnel.

1980 Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 124 424/2 Then there were the first-line supervisors engaged in routine supervision: the quartermen of the shipwright gangs.

1991 APWA Reporter Oct. 23/2 Current management research shows that improving the capabilities of the first line supervisor has a significant impact on the efficiency of the entire organization.

1994 T. Byrne Local Govt. in Brit. (ed. 6) x. 273 The trend to devolve responsibility to middle and first-line managers seeks partly to concentrate power in the hands of those who are closer to the consumer.

1998 Grocer 1 Aug. 61 (advt.) It is essential you possess at least two to six years first line management experience.