Meaning & use
priority
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Meanings
nouncountable
Something that matters more than other things and so is given attention first.
Grammar: Countable: my first priority, our priorities.
Patterns
- a priority for someone
- make something a priority
- give priority to something
Safety is our top priority on every trip.
Her first priority after the move was finding a school for the kids.
Cutting costs is no longer a priority for the company.
noununcountable
The right to go before others or be dealt with first, because of urgency or rank.
Grammar: Uncountable and often followed by over: priority over other traffic.
Patterns
- priority over someone
- give priority to someone
- take priority
Ambulances have priority over all other traffic.
Patients in severe pain are given priority at the clinic.
Urgent tasks take priority over routine ones.
noununcountableformal
The condition of being more important or coming earlier than something else in time or order.
Grammar: Formal and uncommon; usually follows in or of: in order of priority.
Patterns
- in order of priority
Please list the repairs in order of priority.
The inventor claimed priority because her application was filed first.
Word forms
| plural | priorities |
|---|
Common combinations
- top priority
- Fixing the leak is the top priority this morning.
- high priority
- Customer complaints are a high priority for us.
- set priorities
- You need to set priorities before taking on more work.
- conflicting priorities
- Parents often juggle conflicting priorities.
- get your priorities straight
- He finally got his priorities straight and took a break.
- priority seating
- The bus has priority seating near the front for older passengers.
Synonyms and how they differ
- precedence
- Precedence is more formal and stresses coming first in rank or order rather than being a goal.
- urgency
- Urgency describes how pressing a need is, while a priority is something you decide to place first.
- preference
- A preference is what you like best, not necessarily what is most important or pressing.
- importance
- Importance describes how much something matters in general, while a priority is a ranking in a specific list.
Opposites
Word family
- prioritize verb
- to put things in order of importance
- prioritization noun
- the act of ranking tasks by importance
- prior adjective
- coming before in time or order
- priory noun
- a small religious house, from a different branch of the same root
Commonly confused: priority or prior?
priority vs prior
Prior is an adjective meaning earlier (a prior engagement); priority is the noun for what comes first in importance.
Practice
The new manager says that staff training must take ____ over everything else this month.
Choose one answer.
'Take priority over' is the fixed pattern. 'Precedent' means an earlier example, which is tempting but does not fit.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “priority”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.