Word Finder - prior

definition

A high-ranking member of a monastery, usually lower in rank than an abbot.

definition

A chief magistrate in Italy.

definition

(law enforcement) A previous arrest or criminal conviction on someone's record.

definition

In Bayesian inference, a prior probability distribution, one based on information or belief before additional data is collected.

definition

Advance; previous; coming before.

example

I had no prior knowledge you were coming.

definition

Former, previous.

example

His prior residence was smaller than his current one.

definition

Previously.

example

The doctor had known three months prior.

synonyms

• ago
• hitherto

I'd witnessed his reaction the prior night.

She had received notice from Parkside's police officer McCarthy the prior day, Tuesday, late in the afternoon.

Dean was reminded of his prior night's dream.

He's not anxious to resurrect any of his prior difficulties.

Molly joined us, dressed in a new outfit Betsy purchased for her the prior day.

Jackson had not allowed himself to reflect on his relationship with Elisabeth prior to learning her secret, but now he let the memories rush in and in doing so, found some peace.

I walked by prior arrangement to the Portland Road where he met me.

Prior to its construction, a school bus could only pass over it empty, necessitating the children to alight, walk, and rejoin their transportation of the far side.

He was successively prior at Lay, abbot at Nancy and of Senones in Lorraine.

Bobby and Dean had reviewed the testimony the prior week.

Spontaneous volition is free as reflective, but it is the prior act of the two.

There was more arson and blackmailing than murder, though some prominent persons perished, such as the judge, Sir John Caven.dish, and the prior of Bury.

Attacks were made on properties held by Unitarians, but created prior to 181 3.

The prior of Llanthony was finally elected.

It has been suggested that the Sphenophyllales may have sprung from a-very old stock which existed prior to the divergence of the latter groups.

On the contrary, he tries to prove elaborately that they (as well as the pleasures of imagination, ambition, self-interest) cannot be made an object of primary pursuit without a loss of happiness on the whole - one of his arguments being that these pleasures occur earlier in time, and " that which is prior in the order of nature is always less perfect than that which is posterior."

He was responsible, especially, for the great operation known as the opening of the Grand Livre (August 2 4), which was designed to consolidate the public debt by cancelling the stock issued under various conditions prior to the Revolution, and issuing new stock of a uniform character, so that all fund-holders should hold stock of the revolutionary government and thus be interested in its stability.

While the tendril is thus diverted from its original direct course, the axillary bud of the leaf opposite the tendril begins a new podium, by lengthening into a shoot which assumes the direction the tendril had prior to its deflexion.

Besides, denunciation would not have meant a return to prior conditions; for other countries would have continued the convention, and probably with success, and would have proposed prohibitive or retaliatory duties in respect of British sugar, with bad results politically.

At some period unknown, prior to the 6th century, the Etrurians became a conquering people and extended their power not only northwards over, probably, Mantua, Felsina, Melpum and perhaps Hadria and Ravenna (Etruria Circumpadana), but also southwards into Latium and Campania.

Hommel, maintaining that their kingdom existed prior to that of Saba, probably from about 1500 B.C. or earlier until the Sabaeans came from their home in the north and conquered them in the 9th century.

The first is quite free from Nestorian influence, dates from some remote period, perhaps prior to 431, and is certainly the most ancient of those now in use in Christendom; the other two, though early, are undoubtedly of later date.

The events prior to the exodus are relegated by Ewald to a preliminary chapter of primitive history; and the events of the apostolic and postapostolic age are treated as a kind of appendix.

Prior to 1830, little was known of the process other than that organic compounds generally yielded tarry and solid matters, but the discoveries of Liebig and Dumas (of acetone from acetates), of Mitscherlich (of benzene from benzoates) and of Persoz (of methane from acetates and lime) brought the operation into common laboratory practice.

In the July of the same year he was elected prior of St Mark's.

Oppressed by the weight of his crimes, he summoned the unyielding prior to shrive his soul.

Without holding any official post in the commonwealth he had created, the prior of St Mark's was the real head of the state, the dictator of Florence, and guarded the public weal "Dictator with extraordinary political wisdom.

However, in the beginning of 1497 the Piagnoni were again in office, with the prior's staunch friend, Francesco Valori, at their head.

It is said that at least Bernardo del Nero would have been spared had Savonarola raised his voice, but, although refraining from any active part against the prisoners, the prior would not ask mercy for them.

The Piagnoni were again at the head of the state, and by their request the prior resumed his sermons in the duomo, while his dearest disciple, Fra Domenico Buonvicini, filled the pulpit of St Lorenzo.

Now too the Piagnoni quitted office; the new signory was less friendly, and the prior was persuaded by his adherents to retire to St Mark's.

At first the prior treated the provocation with merited contempt, but his too zealous disciple Fra Domenico accepted the challenge.

The next morning, the signory having decreed the prior's.

Sacerdotal robes were thrown over the victims, and then roughly stripped off by two Dominicans, the bishop of Vasona and the prior of Sta Maria Novella.

A similar form was used by the ancient Egyptians long prior to the Jewish use.

In 1530 he was elected abbot of the Augustinian monastery at Spoleto, and in 1533 prior of the convent of St Peter ad Aram at Naples.

In the case of the military classand prior to the Restoration of 1867 the term military class was synonymous with educated class this spirit of stoicism was built up by precept on a solid basis of heredity.

Vicarious interest, however, attaches to the productions of the Mito School on account of the political influence they exercised in rehabilitating the nations respect for the throne by unveiling the picture of an epoch prior to, the usurpations of military feudalism.

On the other hand, he advances too easily from the maxim that function is prior to, and makes, structure to the conclusion that the results of use and disuse are therefore immediately incarnated in structural adaptations capable of hereditary transmission.

Defoe declared that Lord Annesley was preparing the army in Ireland to join a Jacobite rebellion, and was indicted for libel; and prior to his trial (1715) he published an apologia entitled An Appeal to Honour and Justice, in which he defended his political conduct.

Moreover, heresies are not to be confounded with tentative and faulty hypotheses broached in a period prior to the scrutiny of a topic of Christian doctrine, and before that scrutiny has led the general mind to an assured conclusion.

Arabia (whence the Israelites may have come) and in Canaan prior to the great extension of Babylonian influence.

In the cult and ritual of Rome there are enshrined many survivals from a very early form of religious thought prior to the development of the characteristic Roman attitude of mind.

The Alaska gold was derived almost wholly from the large low-grade quartz mines of Douglas Island prior to 1899, but in that year an important district was discovered at Cape Nome, on the north-western coast.

This, however, was not for long; the king of France had to recognize the prior rights of the king of England to the possession of the countship, and restored it to him in 1279.

His reconstruction of the creed of Aphraates is interesting in relation to the other traces of a Syriac creed form existing prior to the 4th century.

If, then, the art of writing was unknown in Greece before, let us say, the 6th century B.C., it would be useless to expect that any events of Grecian history prior to about the 7th century B.C. could have been transmitted to posterity with any degree of historical accuracy.

In view of the fact that the First and Third British Armies were faced with strong positions in the Canal du Nord and the Scheldt canal, which it was advisable to carry prior to the general attack on the Hindenburg line behind the latter obstacle, it was decided that these two armies should open their operations a day earlier than the Fourth Army, so as to draw off the German reserves from the front of that army, which had to deliver the main attack and was faced with the most formidable defences.

It is necessary to know the volume of the tube above the second level; this may most efficiently be determined by calibrating the tube prior to its use.

Prior to that date he was invariably known as Johann Hussynecz, Hussinecz, Hussenicz or de Hussynecz.