before

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English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English before / bifore, from Old English beforan, from be- + foran (“before”), from fore, from Proto-Germanic *furai, from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“front”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian befoar (“before”), German Low German bevör (“before”), German bevor (“before”).

Pronunciation

Preposition

before

  1. Earlier than (in time).
    Synonyms: by, no later than, previous to, prior to, (obsolete) ere
    Antonyms: after, later than
    I want this done before Monday.
  2. In front of in space.
    Synonyms: ahead of, in front of
    Antonym: behind
    He stood before me.
    We sat before the fire to warm ourselves.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book XII”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker ; nd by Robert Boulter ; nd Matthias Walker, , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:
      His angel, who shall go / Before them in a cloud and pillar of fire.
    • 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter I, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919, →OCLC:
      He tried to persuade Cicely to stay away from the ball-room for a fourth dance. […] But she said she must go back, and when they joined the crowd again […] she found her mother standing up before the seat on which she had sat all the evening searching anxiously for her with her eyes, and her father by her side.
    • 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:
      The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.
  3. In the presence of.
    He performed before the troops in North Africa.
    He spoke before a joint session of Congress.
  4. Under consideration, judgment, authority of (someone).
    The case laid before the panel aroused nothing but ridicule.
    • 1726, John Ayliffe, Parergon Juris Canonici Anglicani:
      If a suit be begun before an archdeacon […]
  5. In store for, in the future of (someone).
    Your whole life is before you.
  6. In front of, according to a formal system of ordering items.
    Synonym: ahead of
    Antonym: after
    In alphabetical order, "cat" comes before "dog", "canine" before feline".
  7. At a higher or greater position than, in a ranking.
    An entrepreneur puts market share and profit before quality, and amateur intrinsic qualities before economical considerations.

Translations

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Adverb

before (not comparable)

  1. At an earlier time.
    Synonym: previously
    Antonym: after
    I've never done this before.
    This achievement far exceeded anything that had come before.
    • 1918, W B Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion—or rather as a transition from the subject that started their conversation—such talk had been distressingly out of place.
  2. (chiefly literary or poetic) In advance in position or sequence; ahead.
    Synonym: ahead
    We walked behind while they went before.
  3. (uncommon) At the front end.
    Synonym: in front
    Antonym: behind
    • 1896, Hilaire Belloc, “The Elephant”, in The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts:
      When people call this beast to mind,
      They marvel more and more
      At such a little tail behind,
      So LARGE a trunk before.

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Conjunction

before

  1. In advance of the time when.
    Brush your teeth before you go to bed.
  2. (informal) Rather or sooner than.
    Synonym: lest
    I'll die before I'll tell you anything about it.

Translations

Derived terms

References

  • “before”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
  • Andrea Tyler and Vyvyan Evans, "Spatial particles of orientation", in The Semantics of English Prepositions: Spatial Scenes, Embodied Meaning and Cognition, Cambridge University Press, 2003, 0-521-81430 8

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