prioritize

Etymology

It is formed from English priority + -ize.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} The noun priority comes from Old French priorite and Medieval Latin prioritās, from Latin prior (“former, earlier”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To give priority to; to mark something out as worthy of special attention: 1954, in the Reno Evening Gazette.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense "to arrange items in order of importance" is recorded from 1961, in the Washington Post,^[2][5] and the intransitive use, to set priorities, from 1977.^[2] Etymonline finds the word by 1967 in United States government jargon and thinks it was popularized during the presidential campaign of 1972;^[3] a 1967 newspaper column quoted by Etymonline lists prioritize among the words of "governmentalese".^[3] The word was long disliked: the OED Supplement of 1982 called it "a word that at present sits uneasily in the language".^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1954 – to give priority to something.^[2]
• 1961 – to arrange items in order of importance.^[2][5]
• 1967 – US government jargon.^[3]
• 1977 – intransitive, to set priorities.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To arrange or deal with things in order of importance: The nurse prioritized the patients by the severity of their injuries.^[4][8][5][2]
2. To treat something as more important than other matters: The council prioritized road repairs over new parks.^[4][8][2]
3. (intransitive) To decide which tasks are most important and should be dealt with first.^[4][2][6]

Word family

• prioritization

Related words

• priority
• prior
• reprioritize

Usage notes

It is also spelled prioritise, especially in British English.^[7][8][6]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press