prior
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpɹaɪ.ə/
ipa: /ˈpɹaɪ.(ə)ɹ/
rhymes: -aɪə(ɹ)
Etymology: The adjective is a learned borrowing from Latin prior (“earlier, former, previous, prior; in front; (figurative) better, superior”), from Proto-Italic *priōs (“earlier, previous”, literally “more before”), ultimately from *pri (“before”) (from Proto-Indo-European *pró (“leading to, toward”) and its etymon *per- (“before, in front; first”)) + *-jōs (suffix forming comparative adjectives). Doublet of before, fore, and former.
The adverb and noun are derived from the adjective.
Senses: examples: text: His prior residence was smaller than his current one.
text: I had no prior knowledge you were coming.
text: Since therefore 'tis poſſible for all objects to become cauſes or effects to each other, it may be proper to fix ſome general rules, by vvhich vve may knovv vvhen they really are ſo. […] 2. The cauſe must be prior to the effect.
ref: 1739, [David Hume], “Rules by which to Judge of Causes and Effects”, in A Treatise of Human Nature: […], book I (Of the Understanding), London: […] John Noon, […], →OCLC, part III (Of Knowledge and Probability), pages 303–304:
text: Lady Marney, duly warned of the impending catastrophe, was experiencing all the advantages of prior information.
ref: 1845, B[enjamin] Disraeli, chapter VI, in Sybil; or The Two Nations. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, book I, page 83:
text: "As these busts in the block of marble," though Miriam, "so does our individual fate exist in the limestone of time. We fancy that we carve it out; but its ultimate shape is prior to all our action."
ref: 1860, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “A Sculptor’s Studio”, in The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni. […], volume I, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, pages 148–149:
text: These reconstructions took place with so great ease and rapidity at Abbeville, […] that there is now scarce vestige left of any building prior to the fifteenth century.
ref: 1886, John Ruskin, “Rome”, in Præterita. Outlines of Scenes and Thoughts Perhaps Worthy of Memory in My Past Life, volume I, Orpington, Kent: George Allen, →OCLC, page 280:
text: [T]he Mayor, […] seemed to have schooled himself into a course of strict mechanical rightness towards this woman of prior claim, at any expense to the later one, and to his own sentiments.
ref: 1886 May, Thomas Hardy, chapter XIII, in The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, page 152:
synonyms: word: advance
word: antecedent
word: anterior
word: antecedent
word: anterior
word: earlier
word: erstwhile
word: ex
word: foregone
word: former
word: hitherto
word: old
word: olden
word: past
word: preceding
word: precedent
word: previous
word: prior
word: quondam
word: sometime
word: used-to-be
word: whilom
glosses: Coming before in order or time; earlier, former, previous.
glosses: More important or significant.
qualifier: Bayesian statistics
glosses: Chiefly in prior probability: of the probability of an event: determined without knowledge of the occurrence of other events that bear on it, before additional data is collected.
Derived terms: word: prior art
word: priorate
word: prior authorization
word: prioristic
word: prior knowledge
word: priorly
word: prior probability
word: prior restraint
word: prior to
word: recognition of prior learning
Related terms: a priori
priority