What does previous mean? Previous is a synonym of earlier. It is an adjective. One might discuss something that happened the previous day, for instance, or the previous week or month or year.
Previous comes from the Latin word praevius , and its English form was first recorded in Previously is the related adverb , and it is sometimes a synonym of before , meaning at an earlier time. What does prior mean? The adjective prior is also a synonym of earlier. According to most sources, prior and previous are interchangeable. Indeed, one could substitute prior for previous in the example sentences above without changing their meanings.
Prior refers to existing or coming before in time, order, or importance. Previous refers to existing or occurring before in time or order. Prior also indicates the male head of a house in a religious order. Previous gives the connotation of preceding. Prior is less frequently used when compared to previous, but, it is more used in corporate context.
Previous is more frequently used when compared to prior. Prior is used to refer to previous criminal convictions in Northern American. Previous is used as a noun to refer to previous criminal convictions in British English.
About the Author: admin. I would say something like, "Moment D is the same as the previous two moments", and the statement would unambiguously refer to moments B and C. Thanks for any usage advice or collocation stats on these terms.
Improve this question. Tushar Raj I personally don't like using "prior" for this meaning, but I can't tell you why or if it's wrong. And Google Ngrams shows that both previous and preceding are used frequently for this meaning, but prior is not, justifying my vague intuition that you shouldn't use prior.
No doubt prior and previous are interchangeable when referring to time or order. But I find the phrase 'previous to' ungrammatical, and prefer 'prior to' or 'previously'. Maybe I'm wrong, but it just sounds clumsy to me. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Since you can't access OED, I'm quoting the definitions: prior Existing or coming before in time, order, or importance: previous: Existing or occurring before in time or order: precede: Come before something in time: Come before in order or position: None of them unambiguously preclude A, in my opinion.
You need more words. You should say something like: "Moment D is the same as the two moments immediately preceding it". Improve this answer. Community Bot 1. Tushar Raj Tushar Raj Thanks for the OED info. Is that the best option?
Or should I go with "prior to" or previous to" it? I need to keep Moment D the subject in my phrasing. For some reason it connotes to me the sense of urgency you're possibly striving for.
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