Meaning & use
top priority
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
The thing that is most important and must be dealt with before anything else.
Grammar: Takes an article: a top priority, the top priority.
Patterns
- make something a top priority
- a top priority for someone
Safety is our top priority.
Finding a new apartment became her top priority this month.
The manager made fixing the website a top priority.
adjectivebefore a nounbusiness
Given the highest importance and treated before all other jobs, as in an urgent request or task.
Grammar: Used before a noun: a top-priority task.
Patterns
- top-priority task
- top-priority issue
This is a top-priority task for the whole team.
The hospital treats top-priority cases first.
We marked the message as top priority.
Word forms
| plural | top priorities |
|---|
Common combinations
- make something a top priority
- The new mayor made schools a top priority.
- remain a top priority
- Customer satisfaction remains a top priority.
- treat as a top priority
- Please treat this request as a top priority.
- be at the top of the priority list
- Healthcare is at the top of the priority list.
- set top priorities
- At the start of the year we set our top priorities.
Synonyms and how they differ
- first priority
- First priority is almost identical but suggests an order of tasks, while top priority stresses level of importance.
- main concern
- Main concern focuses on what you worry about most, and does not mean that you will act first.
- urgent matter
- An urgent matter must be done soon, but it may not be the most important thing overall.
- number one
- Number one is more informal and often used in speech or headlines.
Opposites
Word family
- priority noun
- something that is more important than others
- prioritize verb
- to treat as most important
- prioritization noun
- the act of ranking by importance
- prior adjective
- coming before in time or importance
Commonly confused: top priority or urgent?
top priority vs urgent
Urgent means it must be done quickly, while a top priority is about importance, so a task can be urgent without being the top priority.
Practice
After the storm damaged the roof, repairing it became our ______ before we could think about anything else.
Choose one answer.
A top priority is what must be dealt with first. Low priority and minor detail would suggest the repair can wait, which contradicts the sentence.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “top priority”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.