status established in order of importance or urgency
"...its precedence as the world's leading manufacturer of pharmaceuticals"
"national independence takes priority over class struggle"
preceding in time
"The meeting was rescheduled to give priority to the urgent client call that arrived first thing in the morning."
An item's relative importance.
"When planning the budget, we decided to give our children's education a higher priority than buying new furniture."
In plain English: Priority is something that you need to do or care about more than other things.
"Please make safety your top priority when driving in bad weather."
Usage: Use priority to describe which task or concern matters most and should be addressed first among others. You can say an item has high priority when it takes precedence over less important matters.
The word priority comes from the Old French priorite, which was borrowed from the Latin priōritās. It originally described the state of being first or having precedence before others.