At a time before the present one, or before the event you are talking about. It signals that something happened earlier.
From *previous* plus the adverbial suffix *-ly*. It ultimately comes from Latin *praevius*, 'going before'.
TV shows turned 'Previously on…' into a memory trigger. The word is a cue to your brain: connect what you’re about to hear with what you already know. It’s a tiny time machine word that constantly rewinds conversations.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.