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First in rank, degree, dignity, authority, or importance; as, prime minister. "Prime virtues." Dryden.

Privy council (Eng. Law), the principal council of the sovereign, composed of the cabinet ministers and other persons chosen by the king or queen. Burrill. -- Privy councilor, a member of the privy council. -- Privy purse, moneys set apart for the personal use of the monarch; also, the title of the person having char…

robe his or her virtue and ability to bear the severities of the rule. (b) The trial of a ministerial candidate's qualifications prior to his ordination, or to his settlement as a pastor. (c) Moral trial; the state of man in the present life, in which he has the opportunity of proving his character, and becoming qualif…

or letters. Dryden died without a will, and his widow having renounced, his son Charles administered on June 10. W. D. Christie.

A diplomatic representative who resides at a foreign court; -- a term usualy applied to ministers of a rank inferrior to that of ambassadors. See the Note under Minister,4.

A person entitled to be revered; -- a title applied to priests or other ministers with the pronouns his or your; sometimes poetically to a father. Shak. Save your reverence, Saving your reverence, an apologetical phrase for an unseemly expression made in the presence of a priest or clergyman. -- Sir reverence, a contr…

They . . . never think it to be a part of religion to rush into the office of princes and ministers. Sprat.

To administer the sacraments. [R.] Both to preach and sacramentize. Fuller.

To make sorrowful; to sadden. [Obs.] How it sadded the minister's spirits! H. Peters.

class scandalized, and the lower orders, some laughing, others backing the soldier or the minister, as their fancy dictated. Sir W. Scott.

or commander of land forces in the Turkish empire; especially, the commander-in-chief of minister of war.

To be subordinate to; to act a secondary part under; to appear as the inferior of; to minister to. Bodies bright and greater should not serve The less not bright. Milton.

to ordain or install as pastor or rector of a church, society, or parish; as, to settle a minister. [U. S.]

To hear or receive the confession of; to administer confession and absolution to; -- said of a priest as the agent. That they should shrive their parishioners. Piers Plowman. Doubtless he shrives this woman, . . . Else ne'er could he so long protract his speech. Shak. Till my guilty soul be shriven. Longfellow.…

gage in its interest, in opposition to another party; to take sides; as, to side with the ministerial party. All side in parties, and begin the attack. Pope.

ilege of instruction, or the like, especially from the act of preaching; as, to silence a minister of the gospel. The Rev. Thomas Hooker of Chelmsford, in Essex, was silenced for nonconformity. B. Trumbull.

or township which the mill stands. [Eng.] Soc and sac (O. Eng. Law), the full right of administering justice in a manor or lordship.

To perform with solemn or ritual ceremonies, or according to legal forms. Baptism to be administered in one place, and marriage solemnized in another. Hooker.

n the regulation of the lives and actions of men. South. Sovereign state, a state which administers its own government, and is not dependent upon, or subject to, another power.

Stuck; spoiled in making. [Scot.] Stickit minister, a candidate for the clerical office who fails, disqualified by incompetency or immorality.