Prior

How to spell prior

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce prior

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prior mean?

1. adjectiveExisting or occurring before something else in time or order.

Prior in a sentence

• The contract requires prior approval from the finance team.

• She had no prior experience of managing a budget.

Where does prior come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes directly from the Latin prior, meaning 'former', 'earlier', or 'superior in rank', which served as the comparative of an older root prius meaning 'before'. In classical Latin it could describe both something that came first in time and someone who stood first in importance, and both of those threads survive in modern English. The adjective sense, meaning 'earlier' or 'previous', entered English in the 1400s and gradually took on the formal, slightly bureaucratic tone it still carries in phrases like 'prior approval'. The religious noun, the head of a priory ranking just below an abbot, arrived earlier through Old French and ultimately rests on the same Latin idea of one who is 'first' or 'foremost' among the brothers. The familiar word 'priority' shares this exact root, which is a handy reminder that prior ends in plain '-or', not the '-er' that the ear sometimes suggests.

How the word is built

• prior (from Latin prior: former, earlier, superior)