a priori

English

WOTD – 1 February 2012

A priori on Wikipedia

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

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

(law) Known ahead of time.
(logic) Based on hypothesis rather than experiment.
In his opening argument, the student mentioned nothing beyond his a priori knowledge.
Self-evident, intuitively obvious
Presumed without analysis
(linguistics, of a constructed language) Developed entirely from scratch, without deriving it from existing languages.^[1]
- 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.

(logic) based on hypothesis rather than experiment.

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

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

derived by logic

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)