# prior

/ˈpɹaɪɝ/ (US) · /pɹˈaɪɐ/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/prior
Updated: 2026-08-15

## Senses

### 1. earlier

adjective · CEFR B2 · Formal

happening or existing before something else.

For teachers: existing or occurring before in time, order, or importance.

- The athlete had no prior experience in this type of competition.
- The merger was cancelled because the company had a prior agreement with a different international partner.

### 2. before

adverb · CEFR B2 · Formal

used with 'to' to mean before a specific time or event.

For teachers: functioning as a compound preposition when followed by 'to', indicating temporal precedence.

- Please sign these documents prior to your appointment on Tuesday.
- Prior to the implementation of the new software, all staff members must complete a mandatory training module.

### 3. religious leader

noun · CEFR C2 · Formal

a man who is the head of a religious house, like a monastery.

For teachers: a monk who is the head of a religious house or second in authority to an abbot.

- The prior led the monks into the chapel for their morning prayers.
- The prior was responsible for the daily administration of the monastery, ensuring that both spiritual and temporal duties were fulfilled.

### 4. criminal record

noun · CEFR C1 · American English · Informal

a person's past crimes or times they were arrested.

For teachers: a previous criminal conviction or arrest on an individual's record.

- The police checked his file and saw he had several priors for theft.
- The judge took the defendant's lack of priors into account when deciding on a more lenient sentence.

Usage: Usually used in the plural form 'priors'.

### 5. statistics

noun · CEFR C2 · Technical · Academic

an initial guess or calculation made before new information is collected.

For teachers: a prior probability distribution representing the likelihood of an outcome before new evidence is taken into account.

- The researcher updated the prior after seeing the results of the first test.
- In Bayesian inference, the prior is combined with the likelihood function to determine the posterior distribution.

## Examples

- I have a prior commitment this evening.
- The applicant was rejected because they lacked prior experience in the software industry.
- The court ruled that the defendant's prior convictions were inadmissible as evidence during the current trial to avoid biasing the jury.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.