prior to

English

Preposition

(formal) before, previous to.

Usage notes

The etymological antonym of prior is ulterior (from Latin), and the corresponding antonym to prior to is ulterior to (compare primate/ultimate for “first/last”). This is now no longer used, however, and there is no corresponding antonym to express “after”. Typically either subsequent (to) or posterior (to) are used, but these form different pairs – precedent/subsequent and anterior/posterior – and are more formal than prior. For this reason some suggest against using prior to, particularly when it is paired with an antonym, instead using the Germanic before/after.^[1] The other aspect of this deprecation is simply avoiding the puffery of fancy words where plain ones would be better;^[2] see also following § Usage notes.

Translations

before (formal)

Arabic: قَبْل (ar) (qabl)
Egyptian Arabic: قبل (ʔabl)
Azerbaijani: əvvəl (az)
Dutch: voorafgaand aan
Finnish: ennen kuin (fi)
French: ^{(please verify)} avant (fr), ^{(please verify)} antérieur (fr)
German: im Vorfeld (von) (but rarer and more formal than "prior", generally use vor)
Persian: پیش از (piš az)
Portuguese: antes de (pt), anterior a
Russian: до (ru) (do), перед (ru) (pered), прежде (ru) (prežde)
Swedish: innan (sv), före (sv)

References

^ “Antonym of prior to?”, Danny Beckett, English Language & Usage, StackExchange
^ Garner, Modern American Usage:
“As Theodore Bernstein once pointed out, one should feel free to use prior to instead of before only if one is accustomed to using posterior to for after.

Anagrams

portoir

[1] “Antonym of prior to?”, Danny Beckett, English Language & Usage, StackExchange

[2] Garner, Modern American Usage:
“As Theodore Bernstein once pointed out, one should feel free to use prior to instead of before only if one is accustomed to using posterior to for after.

[1]

[2]