premier

Foremost; first or highest in quality or degree.

2004, Philip Moore, Scouting an Anthropology of Sport, Anthropologica, Volume 46, Number 1, Canadian Anthropology Society, page 40, This failure, for a team associated with one of the premier Australian Rules Football teams with the longest of traditions, is truly enormous.

2011, Kate Askew, Dot. Bomb Australia, Read How You Want, page 70, If they′d followed the advice they had received more carefully, they would have paired up with John Fairfax Holdings, later Fairfax Media, Australia′s premier independent media company.

Most ancient; first to hold a specified status.

PREMIER, a. This French word, which signifies first, is used by English Heralds to signify the most ancient Peer of any Degree by Creation; as Premier Baron, &c.

[…]dau. of Lord Forbes, Premier Baron of Scotland (the Cumine family were of very ancient date[…])

The head of government in parliament and leader of the cabinet.

1871 July 29, “Our Tyrant”, The Spectator, Volume 303, Issues 9308-9315, page 910, Mr. Gladstone had literally no option. Not to coerce the Lords was to coerce the Commons to continue purchase in spite of their repeated votes for its abolition, and this the Premier had as little the power as the will to do.

The head of government in parliament and leader of the cabinet.

More surprising than the company′s activities and interests were those of the premier of Ontario, Mitchell Hepburn.

The major concern of most of the premiers who attended the 1887 conference was, as Macdonald well understood, to put pressure upoon Ottawa to amend the B.N.A. Act to increase the subsidies paid to the provinces by tying them to current population levels rather than those of 1860.

The government leader in a legislative congress or leader of a government-level administrative body; the head of government.

1983, Guo Zhou, China & the World, Volume 4, Beijing Review, page 13, This shows that our policy of strengthening friendly ties with Africa as developed by Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai is a correct one and that it has won popular support in Africa.

Actual decision-making power in China resides in the state′s executive organs and in the CCP. At the national level the top government executive organ is the State Council, which is led by the premier.

The first lieutenant or other second-in-command officer of a ship.

The champion team of a particular season (especially as used in Australian rules football).

To perform, display or exhibit for the first time.

The composer invited all his friends when they premiered the movie he orchestrated, we got to see it before anyone but the crew.

Beethoven at first promised Schuppanzigh the right to premier Opus 127, but Linke, cellist in Schuppanzigh′s Quartet, had also received Beethoven′s permission to premier the work at a special benefit concert for himself.

To govern in the role of premier.