earlier in time; previously; "I had known her before"; "as I said before"; "he called me the day before but your call had come even earlier"; "her parents had died four years earlier"; "I mentioned that problem earlier"
Used in a Sentence
before
How to use before in a sentence. Example sentences and definitions for before.
Editorial note
You try telling a 6 year old that her daddy has cancer and will be dead before she turns 8.
Examples17
Definitions2
Parts of speech1
Quick take
earlier in time; previously; "I had known her before"; "as I said before"; "he called me the day before but your call had come even earlier"; "her parents had died four years earlier"; "I mentioned that problem earlier"
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of before gathered in one view.
at or in the front; "I see the lights of a town ahead"; "the road ahead is foggy"; "staring straight ahead"; "we couldn't see over the heads of the people in front"; "with the cross of Jesus marching on before"
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for before.
adverb
earlier in time; previously; "I had known her before"; "as I said before"; "he called me the day before but your call had come even earlier"; "her parents had died four years earlier"; "I mentioned that problem earlier"
See also: earlier
adverb
at or in the front; "I see the lights of a town ahead"; "the road ahead is foggy"; "staring straight ahead"; "we couldn't see over the heads of the people in front"; "with the cross of Jesus marching on before"
See also: ahead
Example sentences
You try telling a 6 year old that her daddy has cancer and will be dead before she turns 8.
He entered the metal detector before me, and was waved along.
I worked at Amazon from before Steve left to sometime later.
The likelihood that your business was going to die before you could pay all your debts was priced into your contracts.
They made millions selling their stock before the market truly understood what a shit business they were running.
It presents an excellent opportunity to fix things in a way that never could have been imagined before.
I mentioned before, but if you want guaranteed replication, use w=2 form of getLastError.> But, the real problem:> 1.
It's a little early to say for sure, but I predict this will do more to hurt Apple's reputation in the tech community than anything they've done before.
I never liked the fact that their schizophrenic content releases would appear during a timed window, only to disappear from my list later before I actually got a chance to watch it.
It will create a positive loop that encourages others to follow and interact with their main corporate account.- Respond before something is actually important.
There was lots of existing documentation and lore about SOAs, but at Amazon's vast scale it was about as useful as telling Indiana Jones to look both ways before crossing the street.
Many years ago, before the creation of the Web, a small group of us used to meet at a little wooden church just off the Stanford campus to discuss a little-known idea called nanotechnology.
From what I gather, such a large shift in focus and investment was a unprecedented in Google before Google+.I think Google is a great company, I have a super high opinion of the people that I met there.
A teeny tiny sampling of these discoveries included:- pager escalation gets way harder, because a ticket might bounce through 20 service calls before the real owner is identified.
She can come before the judge in 30 days with the document and collect her passport or she'll be deported to countryX".I had to unnecessarily waste time and money hiring a lawyer to figure out what the heck went wrong.
This is still a board for entrepreneurs before it is a board for hackers, but some of the more out-there John Galt type stuff will now get picked apart and downvoted, or even just ignored, where before you either clucked your tongue in agreement, remained silent, or donned your flame suit.
If each bounce goes through a team with a 15-minute response time, it can be hours before the right team finally finds out, unless you build a lot of scaffolding and metrics and reporting.- every single one of your peer teams suddenly becomes a potential DOS attacker.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use before in a sentence?
You try telling a 6 year old that her daddy has cancer and will be dead before she turns 8.
What does before mean?
earlier in time; previously; "I had known her before"; "as I said before"; "he called me the day before but your call had come even earlier"; "her parents had died four years earlier"; "I mentioned that problem earlier"
What part of speech is before?
before is commonly used as adverb.