priority

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   An item's relative importance.

   • He set his e-mail message's priority to high.
2. 2

   A goal of a person or an organisation.

   • She needs to get her priorities straight and stop playing games.
3. 3

   The quality of being earlier or coming first compared to another thing

   The quality of being earlier or coming first compared to another thing; the state of being prior.

   • In bankruptcy law, a business' debt to its employees has priority over its debt to a landlord, so the employees must be paid first.
   • But it's now platform extension work which will allow the station to handle LNER Azuma trains which needs to take priority, if a direct service to London King's Cross is to begin in 2021.
4. ›+ 3 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      A superior claim to use by virtue of being validly published at an earlier date.

      • Neither [Jones][…] nor I (in 1966) could conceive of reducing our "science" to the ultimate absurdity of reading Finnish newspapers almost a century and a half old in order to establish "priority."
   2. 5

      Precedence

      Precedence; superior rank.

      • Follow Cominius. We must follow you. / Right worthy you priority.
      • Sozomen is not criticizing Constantine but rather asserting that bishops have priority over emperors, in case the readers might not have understood this […]
      • Who has priority, one's mother or one's wife? Question: To whom should a married man should give much preference, either his mother or wife?
   3. 6

      Right of way

      Right of way; The right to pass (an intersection) before other road users.

The neighborhood

• synonymanteriority
• antonymdisfocusstate of not focusing or prioritizing