priority

Noun

priority (countable and uncountable, plural priorities)

1. An item's relative importance.
   • He set his e-mail message's priority to high.
2. A goal of a person or an organisation.
   • She needs to get her priorities straight and stop playing games.
3. The quality of being earlier or coming first compared to another thing; the state of being prior.
   • In bankruptcy law, a business' debt to its employees has priority over its debt to a landlord, so the employees must be paid first.
   • But it's now platform extension work which will allow the station to handle LNER Azuma trains which needs to take priority, if a direct service to London King's Cross is to begin in 2021.2020 January 2, Graeme Pickering, “Fuelling the changes on Teesside rails”, in Rail, page 59
4. A superior claim to use by virtue of being validly published at an earlier date.
   • Neither [Jones][…] nor I (in 1966) could conceive of reducing our "science" to the ultimate absurdity of reading Finnish newspapers almost a century and a half old in order to establish "priority."1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page viii
5. Precedence; superior rank.
   • Follow Cominius. We must follow you. / Right worthy you priority.1608, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Coriolanus, act 1, scene 1, line 244
   • Sozomen is not criticizing Constantine but rather asserting that bishops have priority over emperors, in case the readers might not have understood this […]1998, Mary Whitby, The Propaganda of Power: The Role of Panegyric in Late Antiquity, BRILL, →ISBN, page 308

   Synonyms:

   dignity, eminence, seniority, superiority

6. Right of way; The right to pass (an intersection) before other road users.