How to Use in the first place in a Sentence

in the first place

phrase
  • But only if people feel safe enough to ask for help in the first place.
    — Brian Castrucci, Forbes.com, 1 July 2026
  • Those who were lucky enough to get one in the first place now held the hottest ticket in town.
    — Ben Church, CNN Money, 30 June 2026
  • The key is to understand what caused the increase in the first place.
    — Amy Powell, Forbes.com, 30 June 2026
  • This is what drives many teachers into the profession in the first place.
    — Mackenzie Price, Forbes.com, 1 July 2026
  • More meetings to coordinate what should have been connected in the first place.
    — Sachin H. Jain, Forbes.com, 1 July 2026
  • But those allegations don't change why Thomas was suspended in the first place.
    — Alejandro Avila Outkick, FOXNews.com, 30 June 2026
  • Taken too far, the pursuit of a goal can undermine the reason for pursuing it in the first place.
    — Bydoug Ashburn, Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 June 2026
  • That spread everything thin and almost everything was canceled or never greenlit in the first place.
    — Paul Tassi, Forbes.com, 29 June 2026
  • The smoke, the char, the flavor—the reasons for cooking with live fire in the first place—are there in ways even the best pellet grills struggle to produce.
    — Noah Kaufman, Bon Appetit Magazine, 1 July 2026
  • So this begs an important question about how WD 1856 b even got there in the first place.
    — Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 1 July 2026
  • But the answer might also be what convinces a talented person to accept an offer—or apply in the first place.
    — Benjamin Wolff, Forbes.com, 29 June 2026
  • Oftentimes, preventing clutter in the first place is much easier than letting go of it after the fact.
    — Mary Cornetta, Better Homes & Gardens, 1 July 2026
  • Taxpayers no longer received the certainty that had made the procedures attractive in the first place.
    — Virginia La Torre Jeker, Forbes.com, 2 July 2026
  • Two lots of dog food not only have been pulled this week in a not-food-in-your-food recall, but the manufacturer claims theft put them on store shelves in the first place.
    — David J. Neal, Miami Herald, 4 July 2026
  • The question now is whether their products will still make sense when someone asks, later, why a particular decision was made in the first place.
    — Narendhira Ram Chandraseharan, Forbes.com, 25 Feb. 2026
  • Waiting for a third or fourth confirmation defeats the purpose of deploying AI in the first place.
    — David Ly, Forbes.com, 26 Feb. 2026
  • Laryea did, in a way, kick Mudau with his stride, but the South African defender had put his leg there in the first place, having not touched the ball.
    — Laurie Whitwell, New York Times, 28 June 2026
  • Intent is the underlying reason a mastermind, founder or leadership team decides to create something in the first place.
    — Majeed Javdani, Forbes.com, 29 June 2026
  • The real opportunity is unfolding at companies that never overbuilt in the first place.
    — David Mainiero, Forbes.com, 30 June 2026
  • The history in Kaskaskia is as rich as the soil that attracted settlers in the first place and made it, for a time, Illinois’ most important place.
    — Andrew Carter, Chicago Tribune, 5 July 2026
  • Comfort is another consideration – and a key factor driving the new wave of freestanding backpacking tents in the first place.
    — New Atlas, 28 June 2026
  • Those people might be on the street or at the next table or just do things that suggest someone who had taken to the very close-quarter casual vibe that presumably is why someone would want to live here in the first place.
    — Steven Zeitchik, HollywoodReporter, 3 July 2026
  • Roughly $27 billion of the core market is Represented, meaning it was never designed to transfer publicly in the first place.
    — Aaron Stanley, Forbes.com, 2 July 2026
  • Winning them back later requires deeper concessions, heavier marketing investment and more complex offers than retaining them would have in the first place.
    — Avy Punwasee, Forbes.com, 26 Feb. 2026
  • Rather, the drafters were making a point about political authority, insisting that Parliament had no authority to tax the Colonies in the first place.
    — Joseph Thorndike, Forbes.com, 29 June 2026
  • The workshop’s participants also stressed that the US military has a broad set of response options, coupled with more resilient space architectures to deter an attack in the first place.
    — Stephen Clark, ArsTechnica, 29 June 2026
  • Finally, the current generation is focused on something deeper, helping people regulate the biological systems that influence our health and create those effects in the first place.
    — Pooja Mistry, Forbes.com, 30 June 2026
  • Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, medications can also greatly reduce one's risk of contracting HIV in the first place.
    — Charles Trepany, USA Today, 2 July 2026
  • Ojeda Duarte’s attorney argues the government’s admission that his deportation was erroneous is also an acknowledgment that authorities wrongfully detained him in the first place.
    — Laura Rodríguez Presa, Chicago Tribune, 29 June 2026
  • Whether that’s just piggybacking on the R&D funding that created the internet in the first place, or the GPS constellations that were required for Zip2, his first city directory.
    — Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 3 July 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'in the first place.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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