The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Priority \Pri*or"i*ty\, n. [Cf. F. priorit['e]. See Prior, a.]
   1. The quality or state of being prior or antecedent in time,
      or of preceding something else; as, priority of
      application.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Precedence; superior rank. --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   Priority of debts, a superior claim to payment, or a claim
      to payment before others.
      [1913 Webster]

   Syn: Antecedence; precedence; pre["e]minence.
        [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

priority
    n 1: status established in order of importance or urgency;
         "...its precedence as the world's leading manufacturer of
         pharmaceuticals"; "national independence takes priority
         over class struggle" [syn: precedence, precedency,
         priority]
    2: preceding in time [syn: priority, antecedence,
       antecedency, anteriority, precedence, precedency]
       [ant: posteriority, subsequence, subsequentness]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

125 Moby Thesaurus words for "priority":
   accent, accomplishment, antecedence, antecedency, anteposition,
   anteriority, arrangement, ascendancy, authority, bold front,
   brave face, brave front, concern, concernment, consequence,
   consequentiality, consideration, deanship, display, dominion,
   eminence, emphasis, excellence, facade, face, facet, facia, favor,
   fore, forefront, foregoing, foreground, forehand, foreland,
   forepart, forequarter, foreside, foreword, front, front elevation,
   front man, front matter, front page, front position, front view,
   frontage, frontal, frontier, frontispiece, greatness, head,
   heading, high order, high rank, immediacy, import, importance,
   incomparability, influence, influentialness, inimitability,
   interest, lap, le pas, lead, leading, majority, mark, materiality,
   merit, moment, note, obverse, one-upmanship, order, ordering,
   paramountcy, precedence, precedency, preceding, precession,
   precursor, predominance, predomination, preeminence, preface,
   preference, prefix, prefixation, prelude, preponderance,
   prepotence, prepotency, prerogative, pressure, prestige, primacy,
   privilege, prominence, proscenium, prothesis, rank, right,
   right-of-way, self-importance, seniority, significance, skill,
   stature, stress, success, superiority, supremacy, the lead,
   top priority, transcendence, transcendency, urgency, value, van,
   virtuosity, weight, weightiness, window dressing, worth



Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

PRIORITY. Going before; opposed to posteriority. (q.v.)
     2. He who has the precedency in time has the advantage in right, is the
maxim of the law; not that time, considered barely in itself, can make any
such difference, but because the whole power over a thing being secured to
one person, this bars all others from obtaining a title to it afterwards. 1
Fonb. Eq. 320.
     3. In the payment of debts, the United States are entitled to priority
when the debtor is insolvent, or dies and leaves an insolvent estate. The
priority was declared to extend to cases in which the insolvent debtor had
made a voluntary assignment of all his property, or in which his effects had
been attached as an absconding or absent debtor, on which an act of legal
bankruptcy had been committed. 1 Kent, Com. 243; 1 Law Intell. 219, 251; and
the cases there cited.
     4. Among common creditors, he who has the oldest lien has the
preference; it being a maxim both of law and equity, qui prior est tempore,
potior est jure. 2 John. Ch. R. 608. Vide Insolvency; and Serg. Const. La*,
Index, h.t.