Before Meaning
/bɪˈfɔː/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
prepEarlier than (in time).
prepIn front of in space.
Sentence Examples
There will always be things I will never learn, I don't have eternity before me!
"Haven't we met somewhere before?" asked the student.
You should have told me so before.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Please finish your homework ____ you turn on the television.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Please remember to wash your hands ____ you sit down to eat your food.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épsder. Proto-Indo-European *h₁epider. Proto-Indo-European *h₁pi Proto-Germanic *bider. Proto-Germanic *bi- Proto-West Germanic *bi- Old English be- Old English foran Old English beforan Middle English bifore English before Inherited from Middle English before /bifore, from Old English beforan, from be- + foran (“before”), from fore, from Proto-Germanic *furai, from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“front”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian befoar (“before”), German Low German bevör (“before”), German bevor (“before”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner."
— 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
"His angel, who shall go / Before them in a cloud and pillar of fire."
— 1667, John Milton, “Book XII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
"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."
— 1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter I, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC:
"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."
— 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:
"If a suit be begun before an archdeacon[…]"
— 1726, John Ayliffe, Parergon Juris Canonici Anglicani:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Please finish your homework ____ you turn on the television.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Please remember to wash your hands ____ you sit down to eat your food.