in order of temporal proximity

Question

In Latin, how would you refer to the concept of sorting events according to temporal proximity (i.e. most recent, or nearest to now, first); as opposed to sorting by priority, or starting from the beginning and proceeding in chronological order.

I thought something along the lines of proximus tempus or proxima temporis, but they seem to translate to simply "next time".

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A quick example to help illustrate

I hope this is a helpful example. Imagine something to the effect of:

Person#1: "Tell me what happened."
Person#2: "I wouldn't even know where to begin."

The response could be to:

• Start from the beginning or first event.
• Start with the most urgent, important, significant or highest priority event.
• Start with the most recent or next upcoming event.

Answer 1

One Latin word for "proximity" is proximitas and "temporal" can be translated as temporalis. Therefore I would translate "in order of temporal proximity" as in ordine proximitatis temporalis.

This is in contrast with in ordine chronologico or in ordine prioritatis. Alternatively, you could drop the in and go with the plain ablative ordine.

Answer 2

The answer given by Joonas is good, and exactly along the lines that you suggest. However, this concept can often seem rather awkward to express in Latin, so I think it worthwhile to expound more widely on it.

We should first remember that proximus means not only 'nearest', but 'adjacent'. Whether it is to be translated as 'most recent' or 'next to come' has to be indicated by the context. Thus we might see proxima nocte abivit and proximo die statuerat, where it is clear that the actions were in the past and took place ‘on the night before’ and ‘on the preceding day’. In the opposite sense we might find proximo die abibunt, ‘they will go away on the day following’, se dixit proximo tempore aliter acturum esse, 'he said that next time he would act differently' and so on.

A useful word for referring to the past is the adjective nuperus,‘recent’ which has normal comparative and superlative form ; the corresponding adverb is nuper, ‘lately’, which has comparative nuperius and superlative nuperrime. To indicate future action more explicitly than using proximus, the participle (in)sequens may serve better.

Some other words that might be useful in this sort of context are the adverbs temperius, ‘sooner’, ‘earlier’, serius, ‘later’ and, when describing the regular succession in chronological order which your question specifies, deinceps may be particularly apposite, an adverb with the meaning 'successively' or 'in turn'.