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in excellence; surpassing, or taking precedence of, others; rarely, surpassing others in evil, or in bad qualities; as, preëminent in guilt. In goodness and in power preëminent. Milton.

ion of something unpleasant, distressing, or calamitous, about to happen; anticipation of evil; foreboding.

To keep or save from injury or destruction; to guard or defend from evil, harm, danger, etc.; to protect. O Lord, thou preserved man and beast. Ps. xxxvi. 6. Now, good angels preserve the king. Shak.

One who prevents or obstructs; a hinderer; that which hinders; as, a preventer of evils or of disease.

s books, newspapers, engravings, etc., a compositor; a typesetter; a pressman. Printer's devil, Printer's gauge. See under Devil, and Gauge. -- Printer's ink. See Printing ink, below.

The condition of being absent; absence; negation. Evil will be known by consequence, as being only a privation, or absence, of good. South. Privation mere of light and absent day. Milton.

munity not enjoyed by others or by all; special enjoyment of a good, or exemption from an evil or burden; a prerogative; advantage; franchise. He pleads the legal privilege of a Roman. Kettlewell. The privilege birthright was a double portion. Locke. A people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties. Burke.…

retell from signs or symptoms; to prophesy; to foreshow; to predict; as, to prognosticate evil. Burke. I neither will nor can prognosticate To the young gaping heir his father's fate. Dryden.

to produce; fruitful of results; active; as, a prolific brain; a controversy prolific of evil.

ord hopes or expectation; to give ground to expect good; rarely, to give reason to expect evil. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion I fear it, I promise you. Shak.

The quality or state of being propense; natural inclination; disposition to do good or evil; bias; bent; tendency. "A propensity to utter blasphemy." Macaulay.

One who, or that which, defends or shields from injury, evil, oppression, etc.; a defender; a guardian; a patron. For the world's protector shall be known. Waller.

To gain experience of the good or evil of; to know by trial; to experience; to suffer. Where she, captived long, great woes did prove. Spenser.

es beforehand in view of an expected or a possible future need, especially a danger or an evil; -- followed by against or for; as, to provide against the inclemency of the weather; to provide for the education of a child. Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Burke.…

A false opinion or doctrine. "To maintain the atheistical pseudodox which judgeth evil good, and darkness light." T. Adams.

Punishing; tending to punishment; punitive. God . . . may make moral evil, as well as natural, at the same time both prudential and punitory. A. Tucker.

achfully or in contempt; one who has overstrict notions. She would make a puritan of the devil. Shak.

d novels were strictly excluded. Macaulay. He had all the puritanic traits, both good and evil. Hawthorne.

Evil; bad; baffling; as, a quade wind. [Obs.] Sooth play, quad play, as the Fleming saith. Chaucer.

ecause it commonly had a square head. [Obs.] To shoot with arrows and quarrel. Sir J. Mandeville. Two arblasts, . . . with windlaces and quarrels. Sir W. Scott.