before
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: bĭfôʹ
ipa: /bɪˈfɔː/
enpr: bĭfôrʹ
enpr: bēfôrʹ
enpr: bəfôrʹ
ipa: /bɪˈfɔɹ/
ipa: /biˈfɔɹ/
ipa: /bəˈfɔɹ/
note: rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger
enpr: bĭfōrʹ
ipa: /bɪˈfo(ː)ɹ/
note: rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger
note: non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger
ipa: /bɪˈfoə/
rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)
Forms: form: befores
form: befo
form: befo'
form: b4
form: be4
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English before /bifore, from Old English beforan, from be- + foran (“before”), from fore, from Proto-Germanic *furai, from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“front”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian befoar (“before”), German Low German bevör (“before”), German bevor (“before”).
Senses: examples: text: On the left of the double column of photographs are the “befores.” Look at them! Fine boys all, yet here is an unformed mouth; there, a fine face just missing strength by a slight over-plumpness of feature; below, a clever face just a shade too “smart”; on the next page, a form too slight and beginning to stoop. On the right are the “afters.”
ref: 1918 April, “Before and After”, in Arthur Deerin Call, editor, Advocate of Peace, volume LXXX, number 4, Washington, D.C.: American Peace Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, “Editorial Notes” section, page 105, column 2:
text: I told them that I was taking part in a ‘Before and After’ feature for the magazine. The beauty editor had picked a couple of girls in the office to experiment on. ‘I always think that the befores look better than the afters in that kind of experiment,’ Aunt G said.
ref: 1973, Mary Lutyens, chapter 8, in Cleo, London: Michael Joseph, →ISBN, page 164:
text: Sometimes we’d agree the person looked better in their before. Happier somehow. More themselves before the muscles. […] Other times we’d laugh at the befores. I’d make a crack, something like, “People should need a special government ID to buy spandex like that. It’s a question of public safety.”
ref: 2017, Meagan Cass, “Calling All Soloflex Men”, in ActivAmerica, Denton, Tex.: University of North Texas Press, →ISBN, page 100:
coordinate_terms: after#Noun
glosses: Of before-and-after images: the one that shows the difference before a specified treatment.
examples: text: As all are commanded to yield like the mummy when the dung beetle rolls the sun / before all the befores of the trillion nights past night and day / though I knew that the broken receding mouth of the Sphinx had nothing to add / of resurrection in the history of its grimace.
ref: 1982, Hugh Seidman, “Hymn”, in Throne/Falcon/Eye: Poems, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →ISBN; quoted in Michael Heller, “SEIDMAN, Hugh”, in James Vinson, D[aniel] L[ane] Kirkpatrick, editors, Contemporary Poets (Contemporary Writers of the English Language), 4th edition, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, 1985, →ISBN, pages 763–764:
text: Your music has lasted since the beginning of the world. A stone was born in the waters. […] Voice rising to heaven, pure music, green primal root, mother-sea, before all the befores.
ref: 1995, Maria Luisa Spaziani, translated by Laura Stortoni, “The Aegean”, in Sentry Towers, Berkeley, Calif.: Hesperia Press, →ISBN, page 41:
text: Yet when I was a child, I stood with my mother on that distant shore, or walked with her up the road, past orchards of plums and pears, past fields narrow as piano keys. To the village where she was born, and her mother before her; all other mothers, all the befores that ever were.
ref: 1998, Janice Kulyk Keefer, “Prologue: A Bridge of Words”, in Honey and Ashes: A Story of Family, Toronto, Ont.: HarperPerennialCanada, →ISBN, page 3:
text: Because we’re in debt to that before, to all the befores where the life was before the words. Every time we pick up a hammer and a nail there’s a dead man in it who built a lean-to out of the weather in Wyoming in December or a farmer in Latin America someplace on the back of a mule-drawn cart broken down with a town’s vegetables rotting in the sun or a Mennonite right over there in McGaheysville this minute saying no to some nigh useless particle board siding and still fashioning his house with his hand.
ref: 2000, Daniel Villasenor, chapter 6, in The Lake, New York, N.Y.: Viking, →ISBN, page 30:
text: For high in the brightest tower of Light Castle, one thing shone still brighter—the Princess of Light! She came from before all the befores, from a place that is no place. Not fire. Not water. Not air. Not earth. No place. Neither solid, nor liquid, nor gas. Nothing to speak of.
ref: 2001, Ezra Scott, “Anavak’s Tale”, in Angel Up My Sleeve, Santa Fe, N.M.: Fontanel Books, →ISBN, page 25:
text: The packing that took all week to finish had also taken her mind off Mike. Less and less she found herself weeping. Her focus was on the nexts. There was little time now to think about all the befores. Today would put an end to the last leftover one.
ref: 2003, Cynn Chadwick, chapter 16, in Cat Rising, Binghamton, N.Y.: Alice Street Editions, →ISBN, page 236:
text: We talk about all the befores. The stupid things we did. The funny things. The times she made us laugh.
ref: 2011, Mary E. Pearson, chapter 74, in The Fox Inheritance (Jenna Fox Chronicles; 2), New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, page 285:
glosses: That which occurred or existed previously.
examples: text: A big wind blew all their befores away. Impacted teeth grew over their names. Even the lines in their hands unraveled, these are the lines they stand in to ask for their hands back.
ref: 1999 March, Julia Vinograd, “The Homeless”, in Street Spirit, volume 5, number 3, San Francisco, Calif.: American Friends Service Committee, →OCLC, page 13:
text: I guess I should have known from all the befores / that when it’s all said and done / I don’t want to be / I won’t stand to be / I refuse to be / anything but YOURS
ref: 2006, Walee [pseudonym], “I Never Can Say Goodbye”, in What’s on the Menu? All of Me! Literary Entrees Prepared by Walee, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, chapter 3, page 55:
text: They were chatting and laughing and it made my heart hurt. They were getting out. Returning to whatever their befores were. They didn’t even glance back at the house as they climbed into the waiting vehicles.
ref: 2015, Sarah Pinborough, chapter 14, in The Death House, London: Gollancz, →ISBN, page 160:
glosses: A previous form or instance.
Derived terms: accessary before the fact
accessory before the fact
age before beauty
a lie can run around the world before the truth can get its boots on
before-and-after
before and after
beforecited
before dark
before GTA 6
beforehand
before image journal
before it was cool
before long
beforely
beforemath
beforementioned
before-mentioned
beforenamed
beforeness
beforenoon
before one can blink
before one knows it
before one knows where one is
before one's eyes
beforesaid
before someone's time
beforestated
before the fact
before the ink had time to dry
before the ink was dry
before the mast
beforetime
before times
before you can say Jack Robinson
before you can say knife
best before date
best-before date
boldly go where no man has gone before
bow down before the porcelain god
bros before hoes
bros before hos
business before pleasure
calm before the storm
carry all before one
carry everything before one
carry the world before one
cast pearls before swine
check yourself before you wreck yourself
chicks before dicks
come before
crawl before one can walk
crawl before one walks
cross a bridge before one comes to it
day before yesterday
dicks before chicks
don't count your chickens before the eggs have hatched
don't count your chickens before they're hatched
don't count your chickens before they've hatched
feels before reals
fingers were made before forks
halloo before one is out of the wood
hereinbefore
hoes before bros
in before
it is always darkest before the dawn
it is always darkest just before the dawn
it is darkest before the dawn
it is darkest just before the dawn
I've never heard it called that before
jump before one is pushed
kneel before
know how to walk before one can run
land before time
learn to walk before one can run
leg before
leg before wicket
lie before
look before one leaps
lull before the storm
make-before-break
milk before meat
misters before sisters
morning after the night before
not before time
nothing is said that has not been said before
one's father was born before one
pearls before swine
pride comes before a fall
pride comes before the fall
pride cometh before a fall
pride goes before a fall
pride goeth before a fall
pride wenteth before a fall
put before
put the cart before the horse
run before
sisters before misters
tears before bedtime
the darkest hour is always just before the dawn
the darkest hour is just before the dawn
the day before
the mixture as before
the night before last
therebefore
thereinbefore
the same mixture as before
throw pearls before swine
time before time
whereinbefore
wrap it before you tap it
you must spoil before you spin