Prioriteer

Prioriteer is the third‑person singular present tense of the Dutch verb prioriteren, which means ‘to prioritize’. The verb is a recent innovation of the Dutch language, developed to provide a more concise form of the longer infinitive. It shares the same root as the English word prioritise and is used in business, project management and everyday conversation to describe the act of ranking tasks, issues or resources according to importance. The word is formed by adding the Dutch infinitive marker -en to the stem prioriter, which itself is a borrowing from the German Priorisieren and the Latin prioritarius.

In Dutch grammar, prioriteer is conjugated like regular -en verbs: hij prioriteert, ik prioriteert niet, zij prioriteerde. It can be preceded by adverbs such as “snel” (quickly) or “efficiënt” (efficiently). In positive contexts it indicates the proactive planning of schedules or budgets; in negative contexts it can imply neglect or failure to order tasks.

The term has spawned related nouns, such as prioriteerplan (prioritisation plan) and prioriteerstrategieën (prioritisation strategies). In recent years, the digital project management community has adopted prioriteer as a marketing term for software tools and training that help teams to systematically rank and manage workloads. The word is also used in instructional materials in Dutch schools’ curricula to teach organisational skills.