means Coming before something else in time, order, or importance — or, used as a noun, a head monk just below an abbot, or one's earlier criminal record.

from Straight from Latin 'prior,' meaning 'former' or 'earlier,' the comparative of 'pri-' (before) — the same ancestral root behind 'primary,' 'prime,' and 'pristine.' The monastic 'prior' (a monastery's second-in-command) arrived in English through medieval church Latin, while the legal sense of a 'prior' conviction is a much later clipping of 'prior offense.'