Apropos vs Prior - What's the difference?

apropos | prior |

As an adjective apropos

is .

As a noun prior is

prior (high-ranking member of a monastery).

apropos

English

Alternative forms

* *

Adjective

(en adjective)

Of an appropriate or pertinent nature.

* 1877 , ,

Nothing easier. I received not long ago a map from my friend, Augustus Petermann, at Leipzig. Nothing could be more apropos .

by the way, incidental.

* 1877 ,

Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. "No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin," he observed. "Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine."

Synonyms

* (by the way) by the way, incidentally, incidental

Preposition

(English prepositions)

Regarding or concerning.

* 2011 , Jeremy Harding, "Diary", London Review of Books , 33.VII:

Few have the same root and branch obsession with the recent past or the avenger’s recall (‘the necessity for long memory and sarcasm in argument’, as he wrote apropos the old left intelligentsia in New York).

Antonyms

* malapropos

Derived terms

* apropos of * apropos of nothing

Adverb

(head)

By the way.

Timely; at a good time.

Anagrams

* ----

prior

English

Adjective

(-)

Of that which comes before, in advance.

I had no prior knowledge you were coming.

former, previous

His prior residence was smaller than his current one.

Usage notes

The etymological antonym is (m) (from Latin) (compare (m)/(m) for “first/last”). This is now no longer used, however, and there is no corresponding antonym. Typically either (m) or (m) are used, but these form different pairs – (m)/(m) and (m)/(m) – and are more formal than prior . When an opposing pair is needed, these can be used, or other pairs such as (m)/(m) or (m)/(m).

Synonyms

* See also

Derived terms

* prior to

Adverb

(en adverb)

(colloquial) Previously.

The doctor had known three months prior .

Noun

(wikipedia prior) (en noun)

A high-ranking member of a monastery, usually lower in rank than an abbot.

* 1939 , (Raymond Chandler), The Big Sleep , Penguin 2011, p. 53:

‘And a little later we get the routine report on his prints from Washington, and he's got a prior back in Indiana, attempted hold-up six years ago.’

(statistics) In Bayesian inference, a prior probability distribution.