before
earlier than; in front of
How often you will meet it
Rank 80 of 71,295 words measured. It occurs 298,511 times across 175,113 chapters — 0.142% of every word in the library.
It belongs to the first 100 words, the band worth learning before any other.
What it means
preposition
- earlier than; in front of
conjunction
- earlier than the time when
before in real books
Each sentence below was written by a published author and is taken from a different book in our library. Open one to read the passage it came from, with narration.
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I had only met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me.
The Picture of Dorian Gray · Oscar Wilde · Chapter 1
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There, just before her father's death, he and she had lived, for four delicious, miserable, momentous weeks.
Christian's Mistake · Dinah Maria Mulock Craik · Chapter 1
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Try every child in every child's part before you make your final selection of the cast of characters.
The White Christmas and other Merry · Walter Ben Hare · Chapter 1
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A century before, a Hawn had settled in one bottom, the lower one, and a Honeycutt in the other.
The Heart of the Hills · John, Jr. Fox · Chapter 1
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He bit his lower lip and went and sat down before the desk again and turned on the electric reading-lamp.
The Courage of the Commonplace · Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews · Chapter 1