Priority

How to spell priority

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce priority

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does priority mean?

1. nounSomething regarded as more important than other things and given attention or resources first.

Priority in a sentence

• Reducing the company debt was the board's top priority this year.

• Safe housing for the family took priority over every other expense.

Where does priority come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin prior, an adjective meaning 'earlier' or 'former', which itself comes from a comparative form linked to the idea of being in front. From prior, medieval Latin built prioritas to describe the state or quality of coming first, both in time and in rank. English took the word in through Old French and Anglo-Norman during the late 1300s, when it referred mainly to the condition of being earlier or having precedence. Over the centuries the sense narrowed toward the modern meaning of a thing treated as more important than others, and from the twentieth century the plural 'priorities' became common business shorthand for the tasks that matter most. The same Latin prior gives us the church title 'prior', the head of a religious house, and the spelling trap usually lies in the unstressed middle: writers often forget the 'i' in the 'ri-or' sequence, since it sounds like a faint schwa.

How the word is built

• prior (from Latin prior: earlier, former)
• -ity (noun suffix forming a state or quality)