Premier means first in rank or importance, and as a noun it is a head of government: "the country's premier research hospital", "the Australian premier". Premiere, with the final e, is the first public showing of a film, play or series: "The film premieres in May." Rank versus opening night.
The core difference
Premier is chiefly an adjective meaning leading, top, foremost. Premiere is a noun and a verb about debuts. They overlap only in the sense that both trace back to the idea of "first", and they are pronounced differently in most accents.
Using premier
- "the premier destination for winter sport"
- "Britain's premier orchestra"
- "the Premier League"
- "The premier of Quebec announced the funding."
The noun sense — a prime minister or head of a state, province or region — is standard in Canada, Australia, China coverage and much international reporting. "The premier resigned" is a political story, never a cinema one.
Using premiere
- "The world premiere is at the Barbican."
- "The series premieres on Sunday."
- "She wore borrowed jewellery to the premiere."
- "The company premiered three new works this season."
As a verb it is regular: premiere, premiered, premiering — and it works both ways round. A film premieres (intransitive), and a festival premieres a film (transitive).
The test
Try substituting leading or top. If the sentence still works, you want premier. If instead you could substitute first performance or opening night, you want premiere. "Britain's leading orchestra" works; "Britain's opening-night orchestra" does not.
The memory trick
Premiere ends in E for Event. If people are turning up on a particular night, the E stays. If you are ranking something, it goes.
The disputed use
Worth being straight about this: "premiere" is increasingly used as an adjective in American marketing — "a premiere golf resort", "our premiere product line". Dictionaries record it, but usage guides and most editors treat it as an error for premier, and it will look careless in careful writing. Use premier for the adjective and you are never wrong.
Pronunciation and accents
British speakers typically say premier as PREM-ee-uh and premiere as PREM-ee-air. American speakers often say prih-MEER for premier and prih-MEER or prem-ee-AIR for premiere, which is part of why the two blur in the United States more than elsewhere.
The French spelling première, with a grave accent, is still occasionally used in classical music and dance programmes. It is not wrong, but plain premiere is now the norm in English and no accent is expected.
