before
Part of speech: prep
adv
conj
noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der.
Proto-Indo-European *h₁épsder.
Proto-Indo-European *h₁epider.
Proto-Indo-European *h₁pi
Proto-Germanic *bider.
Proto-Germanic *bi-
Proto-West Germanic *bi-
Old English be-
Old English foran
Old English beforan
Middle English bifore
English before
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”).
Inflected forms:
form: befo
pos: prep
tags: alternative
form: befo'
pos: prep
tags: alternative
form: b4
pos: prep
tags: alternative
Internet
form: be4
pos: prep
tags: alternative
Internet
form: befo
pos: adv
tags: alternative
form: befo'
pos: adv
tags: alternative
form: b4
pos: adv
tags: alternative
Internet
form: be4
pos: adv
tags: alternative
Internet
form: befo
pos: conj
tags: alternative
form: befo'
pos: conj
tags: alternative
form: b4
pos: conj
tags: alternative
Internet
form: be4
pos: conj
tags: alternative
Internet
form: befores
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: befo
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: befo'
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: b4
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Internet
form: be4
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Internet
Senses:
gloss: Earlier than (in time).
pos: prep
examples: I want this done before Monday.
We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner.
gloss: In front of in space.
pos: prep
examples: He stood before me.
We sat before the fire to warm ourselves.
His angel, who shall go / Before them in a cloud and pillar of fire.
He tried to persuade Cicely to stay away from the ball-room for a fourth dance.[…]But she said she must go back, and when they joined the crowd again[…]she found her mother standing up before the seat on which she had sat all the evening searching anxiously for her with her eyes, and her father by her side.
The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.
gloss: In the presence of.
pos: prep
examples: He performed before the troops in North Africa.
He spoke before a joint session of Congress.
gloss: Under consideration, judgment, authority of (someone).
pos: prep
examples: The case laid before the panel aroused nothing but ridicule.
If a suit be begun before an archdeacon[…]
gloss: In store for, in the future of (someone).
pos: prep
examples: Your whole life is before you.
The golden age[…]is before us.
There is an Eternity behind thee as well as one before. Hast thou bewailed the aeons that passed without thee, who art so much afraid of the aeons that shall pass?
gloss: In front of, according to a formal system of ordering items.
pos: prep
examples: In alphabetical order, "cat" comes before "dog", "canine" before feline".
gloss: At a higher or greater position than, in a ranking.
pos: prep
examples: An entrepreneur puts market share and profit before quality, and amateur intrinsic qualities before economical considerations.
He that cometh after me is preferred before me.
gloss: At an earlier time.
pos: adv
tags: not-comparable
examples: I've never done this before.
This achievement far exceeded anything that had come before.
All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion—or rather as a transition from the subject that started their conversation—such talk had been distressingly out of place.
gloss: In advance in position or sequence; ahead.
pos: adv
tags: literary
not-comparable
poetic
examples: We walked behind while they went before.
gloss: At the front end.
pos: adv
tags: not-comparable
uncommon
examples: When people call this beast to mind,
They marvel more and more
At such a little tail behind,
So LARGE a trunk before.
gloss: In advance of the time when.
pos: conj
examples: Near-synonym: no later than
Brush your teeth before you go to bed.
But before this elaborate treatise can become of universal use and ornament to my native country, two points[…] are absolutely necessary.
Stephen Ward then had to time his tackle excellently to deny Tarmo Kink as the Wolves winger slid the ball out of play before the Estonian could attempt to beat Given.
gloss: Rather or sooner than.
pos: conj
tags: informal
examples: I'll die before I('ll) tell you anything about it.
gloss: Of before-and-after images: the one that shows the difference before a specified treatment.
pos: noun
examples: 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.”
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.
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.”
gloss: That which occurred or existed previously.
pos: noun
tags: often
poetic
uncommon
examples: 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We talk about all the befores. The stupid things we did. The funny things. The times she made us laugh.
gloss: A previous form or instance.
pos: noun
tags: rare
examples: 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.
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
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.
Derived words: 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
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
Translations: