priority

From Old French priorite, from Latin prioritas.

Morphologically prior +‎ -ity

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɹaɪˈɒɹɨti/

  • Audio (RP)

    (file)

• (General American) enPR: prī-ôrʹĭ-tē, IPA^(key): /pɹaɪˈɔɹɪ̈ti/
• Rhymes: -ɒɹɪti
• Hyphenation: pri‧or‧i‧ty

priority (countable and uncountable, plural priorities)

1. An item's relative importance.

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

2. A goal of a person or an organisation.

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

3. 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.

   • 2020 January 2, Graeme Pickering, “Fuelling the changes on Teesside rails”, in Rail, page 59:

     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. (taxonomy, of a name) A superior claim to use by virtue of being validly published at an earlier date.
   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page viii:

     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."

5. (obsolete) Precedence; superior rank.
   • 1608, Shakespeare, William, The Tragedy of Coriolanus, act 1, scene 1, line 244:

     Follow Cominius. We must follow you. / Right worthy you priority.

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

• (state of being prior): See Thesaurus:anteriority
• (superior rank): dignity, eminence, seniority, superiority