Search the Dictionary

Sovereignty; supreme power; hence, superiority; predominance; high, or the highest, station. Sir P. Sidney. Your principalities shall come down, even the crown of your glory. Jer. xiii. 18. The prerogative and principality above everything else. Jer. Taylor.

The superior of a priory, and next below an abbot in dignity. Conventical, or Conventual, prior, a prior who is at the head of his own house. See the Note under Priory. -- Claustral prior, an official next in rank to the abbot in a monastery; prior of the cloisters.

A lady superior of a priory of nuns, and next in dignity to an abbess.

Precedence; superior rank. Shak. Priority of debts, a superior claim to payment, or a claim to payment before others.

t which is taken from another; something captured; a thing seized by force, stratagem, or superior power. I will depart my pris, or may prey, by deliberation. Chaucer. His own prize, Whom formerly he had in battle won. Spenser.

rit by which a cause which has been removed on insufficient grounds from an inferior to a superior court by certiorari, or otherwise, is sent down again to the same court, to be proceeded in there.

Management by a proctor, or as by a proctor; hence, control; superintendence; -- in contempt. "The fogging proctorage of money." Milton.

Superabundant; excessive; prodigal; lavish; as, profuse expenditure. "Profuse ornament." Kames.

the sale of alcoholic liquors as beverages. Writ of prohibition (Law), a writ issued by a superior tribunal, directed to an inferior court, commanding the latter to cease from the prosecution of a suit depending before it. Blackstone.

Dilatory; tedious; superfluous. [Obs.] "Lay by all nicety, and prolixious blushes." Shak.

The authority assumed by a superior power over an inferior or a dependent one, whereby the former protects the latter from invasion and shares in the management of its affairs.

ormerly, a chief clerk in the Court of King's Bench and in the Court of Common Pleas, now superseded by the master. [Eng.] Wharton. Burrill.

A manifestation of the care and superintendence which God exercises over his creatures; an event ordained by divine direction. He that hath a numerous family, and many to provide for, needs a greater providence of God. Jer. Taylor.

Effected by, or referable to, divine direction or superintendence; as, the providential contrivance of thing; a providential escape. -- Prov"i*den"tial*ly, adv.

A region under the supervision or direction of any special person; the district or division of a country, especially an ecclesiastical division, over which one has jurisdiction; as, the province of Canterbury, or that in which the archbishop of Canterbury exercises ecclesiastical authority.

A monastic superior, who, under the general of his order, has the direction of all the religious houses of the same fraternity in a given district, called a province of the order.

A person who is appointed to superintend, or preside over, something; the chief magistrate in some cities and towns; as, the provost of Edinburgh or of Glasgow, answering to the mayor of other cities; the provost of a college, answering to president; the provost or head of certain collegiate churches.…

Exercising prudence; discretionary; advisory; superintending or executive; as, a prudential committee.

To lop or cut off the superfluous parts, branches, or shoots of; to clear of useless material; to shape or smooth by trimming; to trim: as, to prune trees; to prune an essay. Thackeray. Taking into consideration how they [laws] are to be pruned and reformed. Bacon. Our delightful task To prune these growing plants, and…

One who prunes, or removes, what is superfluous.