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To place after, behind, or below something, in respect to precedence, preference, value, or importance. All other considerations should give way and be postponed to this. Locke.

ege or prerogative formerly enjoyed by the king of buying provisions for his household in preference to others. [Eng.]

Preferred stock, stock which takes a dividend before other capital stock; -- called also preference stock and preferential stock.

In preference; by choice. To choose Plautus preferably to Terence. Dennis.

Giving, indicating, or having a preference or precedence; as, a preferential claim; preferential shares.

ting, as at primaries, in which the voters are allowed to indicate on their ballots their preference (usually their first and second choices) between two or more candidates for an office, so that if no candidate receives a majority of first choices the one receiving the greatest number of first and second choices toget…

The act of choosing, or the state of being chosen; preference. [R.] Natural preferment of the one . . . before the other. Sir T. Browne.

The setting of one above another; preference. [R.] Jer. Taylor.

tially as to the character of servants, etc. -- Privileged debts (Law), those to which a preference in payment is given out of the estate of a deceased person, or out of the estate of an insolvent. Wharton. Burrill. -- Privileged witnesses (Law) witnesses who are not obliged to testify as to certain things, as lawyer…

A providing necessaries for the sovereign by buying them at an appraised value in preference to all others, and oven without the owner's consent. This was formerly a royal prerogative, but has long been abolished. Wharton.

Of two alternatives conceived of, by preference to, or as more likely than, the other; somewhat. He sought throughout the world, but sought in vain, And nowhere finding, rather feared her slain. Dryden.

The right of taking in preference to others; the choice of taking or refusing; option; as, to give one the refusal of a farm; to have the refusal of an employment.

h. Save the long-sought regards of woman, nothing is sweeter than those marks of childish preference. Hawthorne.

ides the power of evoking out of unconsciousness one portion of our retained knowledge in preference to another, we posses the faculty of representing in consciousness what is thus evoked . . . This representative Faculty is Imagination or Phantasy. Sir. W. Hamilton.

To choose and take from a number; to take by preference from among others; to pick out; to cull; as, to select the best authors for perusal. "One peculiar nation to select." Milton. The pious chief . . . A hundred youths from all his train selects. Dryden.

The act of selecting, or the state of being selected; choice, by preference.

ish; exclusive regard to one's own interest or happiness; that supreme self-love or self- preference which leads a person to direct his purposes to the advancement of his own interest, power, or happiness, without regarding those of others. Selfishness,- a vice utterly at variance with the happiness of him who harbors…

osition of the stamens and pistils of plants. -- Sexual selection (Biol.), the selective preference of one sex for certain characteristics in the other, such as bright colors, musical notes, etc.; also, the selection which results from certain individuals of one sex having more opportunities of pairing with the other…

to theory and speculation; a speculatist. Cowper. The greatest theoretists have given the preference to such a government as that which obtains in this kingdom. Addison.

s, expressed in some received and authorized way; the expression of a wish, desire, will, preference, or choice, in regard to any measure proposed, in which the person voting has an interest in common with others, either in electing a person to office, or in passing laws, rules, regulations, etc.; suffrage.…