a priori
adverb
- knowledge or justification independent of experience
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˌɑː pɹiˈɔːɹi/ / /ˌeɪ pɹaɪˈɔːɹaɪ/ / /ˌɑ pɹiˈoɹi/
adj
Etymology: First attested in 1610. Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin ā priōrī (“involving reasoning from cause to effect; from first principles”, literally “from the former”).
- Self-evident, intuitively obvious.
- Presumed without analysis.
- Based on hypothesis and theory rather than experiment or empirical evidence.
“In his opening argument, the student mentioned nothing beyond his a priori knowledge.”
“While the great critics drew their authority from the breadth of their reading, New Criterion critics often base their authority on an a priori rejection of the contemporary.”
- Developed entirely from scratch, without deriving it from existing languages.
“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.”
adv
Etymology: First attested in 1610. Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin ā priōrī (“involving reasoning from cause to effect; from first principles”, literally “from the former”).
- In a way based on theoretical deduction rather than empirical observation.