a priori

English

WOTD – 1 February 2012    

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• apriori

Etymology

First attested in 1710, from Latin, literally from the former, from priori (“former”)

Adjective

a priori (comparative more a priori, superlative most a priori)

1. (law) Known ahead of time.
2. (logic) Based on hypothesis rather than experiment.

   In his opening argument, the student mentioned nothing beyond his a priori knowledge.

3. Self-evident, intuitively obvious
4. Presumed without analysis
5. (linguistics, of a constructed language) Developed entirely from scratch, without deriving it from existing languages.
   • 2012 November 1, Wright, Laura, “UT Language Creation Society invites students to learn origins of newer languages”, The Daily Texan:

     Conlangers can also create a priori languages, which have no basis in existing languages. You might be familiar with more a priori conlangs than you think: The Klingon language from the television series “Star Trek,” the Na’vi language from the movie “Avatar,” and the Dothraki language from the television series “Game of Thrones” are all examples of a priori languages.

Antonyms

• (linguistics): a posteriori

Translations

(logic) based on hypothesis rather than experiment.

• Greek: επαγωγικός (el) (epagogikós) m , συμπερασματικός (el) (symperasmatikós) m 

• Russian: априо́рный (ru) (apriórnyj) , доо́пытный (ru) (doópytnyj) , предположи́тельный (ru) (predpoložítelʹnyj) 

Adverb

a priori (comparative more a priori, superlative most a priori)

1. (logic) In a way based on theoretical deduction rather than empirical observation

Translations

derived by logic

• Arabic: مسبق (ar) (vuslak)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 先驗 (cmn), 先验 (cmn) (xiānyàn)

• Czech: a priori (cs)
• Dutch: a priori (nl)
• French: a priori (fr)
• German: a priori (de)
• Greek: εκ των προτέρων (el) (ek ton protéron) 
• Hebrew: אפריורי (he) (apriori)

• Hindi: पूर्वसिद्ध (hi) (pūrvasid'dha)
• Italian: a priori (it)
• Japanese: アプリオリ (ja) (apuriori)
• Polish: z góry (pl)
• Portuguese: a priori (pt)
• Russian: априори (ru) (aprióri) , заранее (ru) (zaráneje) , независимо от опыта (ru) (nezavísimo ot ópyta) , до опыта (ru) (do ópyta) 
• Spanish: a priori (es)
• Turkish: önsel (tr)

Related terms

• apriorism
• apriorist
• aprioristic
• apriority

See also

• a fortiori
• a posteriori

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German

Adjective

a priori (not comparable)

1. a priori

Adverb

a priori

1. a priori

External links

• a priori on the German Wikipedia.de.Wikipedia

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Italian

Wikipedia ^it

Adjective

a priori (invariable)

1. a priori

Adverb

a priori

1. a priori

Antonyms

• a posteriori

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Spanish

Wikipedia ^es

Adverb

a priori

1. beforehand
2. (logic) a priori