before
- adverb
- /bɪˈfɔr/
- According to Ignatieff, never before have people moved in such large numbers across the globe.
Examples
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Look, I have to think of something before tomorrow.
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Subscribe to my channel before you leave.
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We could drop off our luggage before we go explore Houston.
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I've got one more question before we go to the audience.
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No, I've never met you before, sir.
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Often, these youngsters have a lengthy history of youth care before and during their homelessness.
Academic text (2008) -
And I looked up and there standing before me was Julia Roberts.
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Our quest for energy is creating entropy on a scale never before witnessed in the historical process.
Academic text (1993) -
When he looked again, the tyrannosaur was standing there, exactly as before, motionless and huge.
Fiction book (1990) -
I should finish my homework before dinner.
Synonyms
Ahead of or facing something where people can see it
In front or moving forward to make progress
At a place ahead of someone or something
Directly in front of you
Ahead of others in a race, game, or area of work
Toward the front of a ship or plane
Used in old language to mean in front of someone or before a time
Toward the front of something
Antonyms
Idioms
- Informal
To pause and imagine how your words will affect others before you say them
To try something new in a place or way no one has done before
- Literature
To give something valuable to people who do not appreciate it
To stop and think before you say or do something that causes trouble
- Offensive
A joking rule that says male friends come before female friends
- Informal
A phrase telling women to put their friends before men they date
Compounds
- Specialized
A person who helps plan a crime but is not there when it happens
Profit a company makes before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization
A cricket dismissal when a batsman's leg blocks the ball from hitting the stumps and the umpire signals out
How Far Ahead
Surface Forms
Morphology
before = fore (transparent) = be + fore
The meaning directly reflects 'be-' + 'fore' where 'fore' denotes front/earlier and 'be-' forms an adverbial/prepositional item.
Etymology
Before comes from old parts be- and fore, where fore means 'front', like in forehead. So before can mean 'in front of' someone or something.