foremost vs key

foremost

adj
  • Of the highest rank or position; of the greatest importance; of the highest priority. 

  • Positioned in front of (all) others in space, most forward. 

  • Coming before (all) others in time. 

  • Closest to the bow. 

adv
  • In front, prominently forward. 

  • First in time. 

  • Most importantly. 

key

adj
  • Important, salient. 

  • Indispensable, supremely important. 

noun
  • The general pitch or tone of a sentence or utterance. 

  • A piece of wood used as a wedge. 

  • A piece of information (e.g., a password or passphrase) used to encode or decode a message or messages. 

  • A modification of an advertisement so as to target a particular group or demographic. 

  • One of several small, usually square buttons on a typewriter or computer keyboard, mostly corresponding to text characters. 

  • A scale or group of pitches constituting the basis of a musical composition. 

  • A series of logically organized groups of discriminating information which aims to allow the user to correctly identify a taxon. 

  • The degree of roughness, or retention ability of a surface to have applied a liquid such as paint, or glue. 

  • One of a string of small islands. 

  • A crucial step or requirement. 

  • A password restricting access to an IRC channel. 

  • In instruments with a keyboard such as an organ or piano, one of the levers, or especially the exposed front end of it, which are depressed to cause a particular sound or note to be produced. 

  • In musical notation, a sign at the head of a staff indicating the musical key. 

  • A value that uniquely identifies an entry in a container. 

  • A keystone. 

  • The last board of a floor when laid down. 

  • The lowest note of a scale; keynote. 

  • A wooden support for a rail on the bullhead rail system. 

  • In musical theory, the total melodic and harmonic relations, which exist between the tones of an ideal scale, major or minor; tonality. 

  • An indehiscent, one-seeded fruit furnished with a wing, such as the fruit of the ash and maple; a samara. 

  • In musical instruments, one of the valve levers used to select notes, such as a lever opening a hole on a woodwind. 

  • A guide to the correct answers of a worksheet or test. 

  • The thirty-third card of the Lenormand deck. 

  • A guide explaining the symbols or terminology of a map or chart; a legend. 

  • That part of the plastering which is forced through between the laths and holds the rest in place. 

  • In musical theory and notation, the tonality centering in a given tone, or the several tones taken collectively, of a given scale, major or minor. 

  • A manual electrical switching device primarily used for the transmission of Morse code. 

  • The black ink layer, especially in relation to the three color layers of cyan, magenta, and yellow. See also CMYK. 

  • The free-throw lane together with the circle surrounding the free-throw line, the free-throw lane having formerly been narrower, giving the area the shape of a skeleton key hole. 

  • A color to be masked or made transparent. 

  • An object designed to open and close a lock. 

  • In a relational database, a field used as an index into another table (not necessarily unique). 

  • An object designed to fit between two other objects (such as a shaft and a wheel) in a mechanism and maintain their relative orientation. 

verb
  • To be identified as a certain taxon when using a key. 

  • (more usually to key in) To enter (information) by typing on a keyboard or keypad. 

  • To fasten or secure firmly; to fasten or tighten with keys or wedges. 

  • To link (as one might do with a key or legend). 

  • To depress (a telegraph key). 

  • To prepare for plastering by adding the key (that part of the plastering which is forced through between the laths and holds the rest in place). 

  • To attune to; to set at; to pitch. 

  • To vandalize (a car, etc.) by scratching with an implement such as a key. 

  • To operate (the transmitter switch of a two-way radio). 

  • To modify (an advertisement) so as to target a particular group or demographic. 

  • To fit (pieces of a mechanical assembly) with a key to maintain the orientation between them. 

  • To mark or indicate with a symbol indicating membership in a class. 

  • To fit (a lock) with a key. 

How often have the words foremost and key occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )