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a priori

adj
/ˌɑː pɹiˈɔːɹi/UK/ˌɑ pɹiˈoɹi/US

Etymology

First attested in 1610. Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin ā priōrī (“involving reasoning from cause to effect; from first principles”, literally “from the former”).

  1. learned borrowing from ā priōrī

Definitions

  1. Self-evident, intuitively obvious.

  2. Presumed without analysis.

  3. Based on hypothesis and theory rather than experiment or empirical evidence.

    • In his opening argument, the student mentioned nothing beyond his a priori knowledge.
    • While the great critics drew their authority from the breadth of their reading, New Criterion critics often base their authority on an a priori rejection of the contemporary.
  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. Developed entirely from scratch, without deriving it from existing languages.

    2. In a way based on theoretical deduction rather than empirical observation.

The neighborhood

Derived

apriorism, apriorist, aprioristic, apriority

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for a priori. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA