Other forms: priorities
A priority is the thing that must come before all the others. The top priority, set priorities, a priority for the council.
The plural is priorities, and get your priorities right is one of the commonest things said about somebody else's decisions. Take priority over is the standard construction. In transport, priority is the right to go first — give way to traffic with priority — and priority seating is reserved for people who need it. Note prioritise, the verb, which was disliked when new and is now unremarkable.
1nounpriorityThe thing that must come before all others.
“The roof is the priority and everything else can wait.”
2nounrightThe right to go or be dealt with first.
“Emergency vehicles have priority at every junction.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
priority is a matter of order or importance.
Latin prior means earlier or former. Priority meant simply the state of coming first in time; the sense of importance came later, and the plural priorities is a twentieth-century development that would have baffled the Romans.
Latin
priōritās
Old French
priorite
English, today
priority
From Old French priorite, from Latin priōritās. Surface analysis: prior + ity.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA