Before You Use Drive4Walmart.com, Watch This First - Away State Journal
The meaning of BEFORE is in advance : ahead. How to use before in a sentence.
The word before comes from the Old English beforan, meaning “in front of” or “in former times.” Before tells when something happens — don’t hire that guy before you check his references — or the position of something: the library is the last building before the intersection.
Definition of BEFORE in the Definitions.net dictionary. Meaning of BEFORE. What does BEFORE mean? Information and translations of BEFORE in the most comprehensive dictionary definitions resource on the web.
There are 38 meanings listed in OED's entry for the word before, four of which are labelled obsolete. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.
In front of, in time or position; on the anterior or fore side of; in a position or at a point in advance of: as, a happy future lies before you; before the house; before the fire.
We use ' by ' to set a specific time in which everything must occur before or at the exact moment. For example: Turn in your assignments by midnight. You have by Saturday to finish this project. We use ' before ' to show that something occurred in advance of a particular time or event.
"Before" in this sense is more concise and therefore more elegant than "in front of." I don't hesitate to use "before" like this in formal writing, though less often in speech.
