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Prior   /prˈaɪər/   Listen
adjective
Prior  adj.  
1.
Preceding in the order of time; former; antecedent; anterior; previous; as, a prior discovery; prior obligation; used elliptically in cases like the following: he lived alone (in the time) prior to his marriage.
2.
First, precedent, or superior in the order of cognition, reason or generality, origin, development, rank, etc.



noun
Prior  n.  
1.
(Eccl.) The superior of a priory, and next below an abbot in dignity.
2.
A chief magistrate, as in the republic of Florence in the middle ages.
Conventical prior, or Conventual prior, a prior who is at the head of his own house. See the Note under Priory.
Claustral prior, an official next in rank to the abbot in a monastery; prior of the cloisters.



Prior  n.  A prior conviction; said of an accused criminal. (informal)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prior" Quotes from Famous Books



... natural consequence, to assume the rank which the patent bestowed. I have the old story of the jealousy of C——and M——trumped up against me. I resist this pretext, and offer to procure their written acquiescence, in virtue of the date of my patent as prior to their silly claims; I assure you I would have had such a consent from them, if it had been at the point of the sword. And then out comes the real truth; and he dares to tell me to my face that my patent must be suppressed for the present, for fear of disgusting ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... was more an adventitious conversion of the primary form of the disease, by hospital air and delicacy of the cutaneous tissue induced by prior irregularities of life, than a distinct kind to be met with in general practice. It was most commonly presented to us in persons who had a very copious eruption, interesting to a great degree the whole cutaneous surface, and in whom the process of maturation was complete, and the ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... have delivered all the bales that were given me into the Company's warehouse, for which the governor and council have ordered me a reward. Our governor, Mr. Boon, who is extremely kind and civil to me, had ordered me home with the packet; but Captain Harvey, who had a prior promise, being come in with the fleet, goes in my room. The governor had promised me a country voyage to help to make up my losses, and would have me stay and accompany him to England ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... to gold-colour. Her whole nature had been pitched in the key of her supposed plainness. She had known how to be ugly—it was the only thing she had learnt save, if possible, how not to mind it. Being beautiful took in any case a new set of muscles. It was on the prior conviction, literally, that she had developed her admirable dress, instinctively felicitous, always either black or white and a matter of rather severe squareness and studied line. She was magnificently neat; everything she showed ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James

... Georgie Bassett asserted his prior rights. "Who said it first, I'd like to know?" he demanded. "I was going to be a minister from long back of to-day, I guess. And I guess I said I was going to be a minister right to-day before any of you said anything at all. DIDN'T I, Herman? YOU heard me, didn't you, ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington


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