One way to hold number one: picture a list with everyone and everything set out in order, and the very top row marked 1. The list can be a world ranking, a sales chart, the jobs in a company, or just the things you have to do this morning. Whoever or whatever sits in that 1 row is the one put in front of all the others. From there the word grows two ways at once — toward best and most important, and toward first and do it before the rest. Sometimes, though, the 1 is not a ranking at all but simply a label: the 1 on the back of a shirt, or the 1 that adults and small children use so they do not have to say a word out loud. In those uses the number marks a place, not a height.
From the word’s history
Wiktionary records number one as a piecewise doublet of numero uno: number matches numero and one matches uno, so the two expressions are the same phrase built out of different word stock. That fits the picture above — both of them simply name the spot marked 1.
來源資料記到，英文的 number one 和外來的 numero uno 是逐字對應的兩種說法：number 對 numero，one 對 uno。也就是說，同一句話用兩套詞彙各講了一次。這剛好跟上面的畫面對得起來——兩個說法都只是在叫「標著 1 的那一格」。
Wiktionary entry for 'number one' (packet source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1173915670): etymology_text 'Piecewise doublet of numero uno.'
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