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denier or opponent of Christ. Specif.: A great antagonist, person or power, expected to precede Christ's second coming.

An ancestor, or one who precedes in genealogy or degrees of kindred; a relative in the ascending line; a progenitor; -- opposed to descendant. Ayliffe.

A precedent; a decision of a court, an official declaration, or an opinion, saying, or statement worthy to be taken as a precedent.

To drive or force backward; to cause to retreat or recede; as, to back oxen.

A dignity or degree of honor next below a baron and above a knight, having precedency of all orders of knights except those of the Garter. It is the lowest degree of honor that is hereditary. The baronets are commoners.

An officer in a university, who precedes public processions of officers and students. [Eng.]

One who has a claim to precedence; a superior, as in merit, social standing, etc.; -- usually in the plural. Their betters would hardly be found. Hooker. For the better, in the way of improvement; so as to produce improvement. "If I have altered him anywhere for the better." Dryden.

s of euchre and some other games, an extra card sometimes added to the pack, which takes precedence of all others as the highest card.

., at Sydney, a cold and violent south or southwest wind, rising suddenly, and regularly preceded by a hot wind from the north; -- now usually called southerly buster. It blew across the Brickfields, formerly so called, a district of Sydney, and carried clouds of dust into the city.

Formed; shaped; constructed; made; -- often used in composition and preceded by the word denoting the form; as, frigate-built, clipper-built, etc. Like the generality of Genoese countrywomen, strongly built. Landor.

skull really belonged to the deposit in which it was found. If it did, it indicates an unprecedented antiquity for human beings of an advanced type.

Tending, or causing, to recede from the center.

Coolness; coldness; a chill. Death is the chillness that precedes the dawn. Longfellow.

analysis. The investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition. Sir I. Newton. Composition cloth, a kind of clotch covered with a preparation making it waterproof. -- Composition deed, an agreement for composition between a debtor and several creditors. -- C…

ant circumstances in connection with the words employed. Abbott. Interpretation properly precedes construction, but it does not go beyond the written text. Parsons. Construction of an equation (Math.), the drawing of such lines and figures as will represent geometrically the quantities in the equation, and their relati…

The part or parts of something written or printed, as of Scripture, which precede or follow a text or quoted sentence, or are so intimately associated with it as to throw light upon its meaning. According to all the light that the contexts afford. Sharp.

, or to march in reversed order. The two armies marched and countermarched, drew near and receded. Macaulay.

A form assumed by Protozoa inwhich they become saclike and quiescent. It generally precedes the production of germs. See Encystment.

ment of, as goods, etc., for the purpose of paying taxes, duties, etc. To declare off, to recede from an agreement, undertaking, contract, etc.; to renounce. -- To declare one's self, to avow one's opinion; to show openly what one thinks, or which side he espouses.

ain or arrive at as the result of reasoning; to gather, as a truth or opinion, from what precedes or from premises; to infer; -- with from or out of. O goddess, say, shall I deduce my rhymes From the dire nation in its early times Pope. Reasoning is nothing but the faculty of deducing unknown truths from principles alr…