previous meaning
EN
[ˈpɹiviəs] [ˈpɹiːvɪəs] 
US 
- NounPREpré-SUF-ious
- (informal, Britain) An existing criminal record; short for "previous convictions".
- It turned out the shoplifter had a lot of previous.
- (informal, Britain) An existing criminal record; short for "previous convictions".
- Adjective
- More Examples
- Used in the Middle of Sentence
- However, these previous experiments examined genetic variants, incidence of disease, or hyperbiliverdinemia, and thus may have documented patterns not typical of more common processes.
- I don't know why he was so impressed with our previous boss; he lasted all of ten days in the position.
- Damien Broderick, Reading by Starlight (1994) p. 114. If this last, embracing the alien, seems an advance on previous xenophobias, it is largely illusory.
- Used in the Beginning of Sentence
- Previous studies have focused on reductions in mutant protein as a therapeutic approach, such as intrabodies and artificial polypeptides, which target the polyQ domain [24 ].
- Previous reports on unilateral LR recession commonly show extremely low rates of initial overcorrection and large exodrifts after surgery suggesting that the surgical dose may be increased.
- Previous study showed the zic family member Zic2a was involved in the regulation of two prethalamic transcription factor dlx2a and arxa.
- Used in the Middle of Sentence
Definition of previous in English Dictionary
- Part-of-Speech Hierarchy
- Adjectives
- Uncomparable adjectives
- Uncomparable adjectives
- Nouns
- Singularia tantum
- Uncountable nouns
- Uncountable nouns
- Singularia tantum
- Adjectives
Source: Wiktionary
Grammatically, this word "previous" is an adjective, more specifically, an uncomparable adjective. It's also a noun, more specifically, a singularia tantum.