before

prep

1. Earlier than (in time).

   “I want this done before Monday.”

   “We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner.”

2. In front of in space.

   “He stood before me.”

   “We sat before the fire to warm ourselves.”

   “His angel, who shall go / Before them in a cloud and pillar of fire.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “If a suit be begun before an archdeacon[…]”

5. In store for, in the future of (someone).

   “Your whole life is before you.”

   “The golden age[…]is before us.”

   “There is an Eternity behind thee as well as one before. Hast thou bewailed the aeons that passed without thee, who art so much afraid of the aeons that shall pass?”

6. In front of, according to a formal system of ordering items.

   “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.”

   “He that cometh after me is preferred before me.”

adv

1. (not-comparable)At an earlier time.

   “I've never done this before.”

   “This achievement far exceeded anything that had come before.”

   “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. (literary, not-comparable, poetic)In advance in position or sequence; ahead.

   “We walked behind while they went before.”

3. (not-comparable, uncommon)At the front end.

   “When people call this beast to mind, They marvel more and more At such a little tail behind, So LARGE a trunk before.”

conj

1. In advance of the time when.

   “Near-synonym: no later than”

   “Brush your teeth before you go to bed.”

   “But before this elaborate treatise can become of universal use and ornament to my native country, two points[…] are absolutely necessary.”

   “Stephen Ward then had to time his tackle excellently to deny Tarmo Kink as the Wolves winger slid the ball out of play before the Estonian could attempt to beat Given.”

2. (informal)Rather or sooner than.

   “I'll die before I('ll) tell you anything about it.”

noun

1. Of before-and-after images: the one that shows the difference before a specified treatment.

   “On the left of the double column of photographs are the “befores.” Look at them! Fine boys all, yet here is an unformed mouth; there, a fine face just missing strength by a slight over-plumpness of feature; below, a clever face just a shade too “smart”; on the next page, a form too slight and beginning to stoop. On the right are the “afters.””

   “I told them that I was taking part in a ‘Before and After’ feature for the magazine. The beauty editor had picked a couple of girls in the office to experiment on. ‘I always think that the befores look better than the afters in that kind of experiment,’ Aunt G said.”

   “Sometimes we’d agree the person looked better in their before. Happier somehow. More themselves before the muscles. […] Other times we’d laugh at the befores. I’d make a crack, something like, “People should need a special government ID to buy spandex like that. It’s a question of public safety.””

2. (often, poetic, uncommon)That which occurred or existed previously.

   “As all are commanded to yield like the mummy when the dung beetle rolls the sun / before all the befores of the trillion nights past night and day / though I knew that the broken receding mouth of the Sphinx had nothing to add / of resurrection in the history of its grimace.”

   “Your music has lasted since the beginning of the world. A stone was born in the waters. […] Voice rising to heaven, pure music, green primal root, mother-sea, before all the befores.”

   “Yet when I was a child, I stood with my mother on that distant shore, or walked with her up the road, past orchards of plums and pears, past fields narrow as piano keys. To the village where she was born, and her mother before her; all other mothers, all the befores that ever were.”

   “For high in the brightest tower of Light Castle, one thing shone still brighter—the Princess of Light! She came from before all the befores, from a place that is no place. Not fire. Not water. Not air. Not earth. No place. Neither solid, nor liquid, nor gas. Nothing to speak of.”

3. (rare)A previous form or instance.

   “A big wind blew all their befores away. Impacted teeth grew over their names. Even the lines in their hands unraveled, these are the lines they stand in to ask for their hands back.”

   “I guess I should have known from all the befores / that when it’s all said and done / I don’t want to be / I won’t stand to be / I refuse to be / anything but YOURS”

   “They were chatting and laughing and it made my heart hurt. They were getting out. Returning to whatever their befores were. They didn’t even glance back at the house as they climbed into the waiting vehicles.”