Definition of "first-fruit" [first-fruit]

• [Usually in the plural.] The earliest productions of the soil; the first gatherings of a season's produce. Of these the Jews made an offering to God, as an acknowledgment of his sovereign dominion. (noun)
• The first profits of anything; in feudal and ecclesiastical law, the first year's profit of a tenant of real property. The first-fruits of a benefice were payable in the Church of Rome to the pope, in the Church of England formerly to the crown, but since the time of Queen Anne, when paid at all, to a benevolent fund. See Queen Anne's bounty, under bounty. (noun)
• The first portion, products, effects, or results of anything. (noun)
• Original; earliest.

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "And now without servility or any insincerity whatever, as if it were a first-fruit of the Change, I found myself in the presence of a human being towards whom I perceived myself inferior and subordinate, before whom I stood without servility or any insincerity whatever, in an attitude of respect and attention."
• "It was pure bliss to him to bring us the first-fruit of the garden, it was like laying it on an altar."
• "Spanish friar Bartolomé de las Casas wrote in the sixteenth century about how the Taino placed annual first-fruit offerings in caneys."