priority

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Precedence, especially established by order of importance or urgency.
• noun An established right to precedence.
• noun An authoritative rating that establishes such precedence.
• noun A preceding or coming earlier in time.
• noun Something afforded or deserving prior attention.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The state of being prior or antecedent, or of preceding something else: as, priority of birth: opposed to posteriority.
• noun Precedence in place or rank; the having of certain rights before another.
• noun In law, a precedence or preference, as when one debt is paid in priority to others, or when an execution is said to lose its priority by the neglect of the party to enforce it.
• noun Apriority.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The quality or state of being prior or antecedent in time, or of preceding something else.
• noun Precedence; superior rank.
• noun a superior claim to payment, or a claim to payment before others.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun An item's relative importance.
• noun A goal of a person or an organisation.
• noun taxonomy, of a name A superior claim to use by virtue of being validly published at an earlier date.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun preceding in time
• noun status established in order of importance or urgency