Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BE-FORE', adv.

1. In time preceding. You tell me what I knew before. – Dryden.
2. In time preceding, to the present, or to this time; hitherto; as, tumults then arose which before were unknown.
3. Further onward in place, in progress, or in front. Reaching forth to those things which are before. – Phil. iii.
4. In front; on the fore part. The battle was before and behind. – 2 Chron. xiii. In some of the examples of the use of before, which Johnson places under the adverb, the word is a preposition governing a sentence; as, “Before the hills appeared.” This is the real construction, however overlooked or misunderstood.