first and foremost

Also,

first of all

. Most important, primarily; also, to begin with. For example,

First and foremost, I want to thank our sponsors

, or

What we need, first and foremost, is a new secretary

, or

We have to deal, first of all, with the early history

. The first term, dating from the late 1300s, is redundant, since

first

and

foremost

mean virtually the same thing. Both it and the variant, which dates from the mid-1500s, are used to give emphasis to the initial item in a list of several. Also see

first off
first thing