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To act as a prelate. [Obs.] Right prelating is busy laboring, and not lording. Latimer.

The power or right of taking a thing before it is offered. Burrill.

The act or right of taking possession before another; as, the preoccupancy of wild land.

Right of first choice.

An exclusive or peculiar privilege; prior and indefeasible right; fundamental and essential possession; -- used generally of an official and hereditary right which may be asserted without question, and for the exercise of which there is no responsibility or accountability as to the fact and the manner of its exercise.…

bing for title; the claim of title to a thing by virtue immemorial use and enjoyment; the right or title acquired by possession had during the time and in the manner fixed by law. Bacon. That profound reverence for law and prescription which has long been characteristic of Englishmen. Macaulay.

ng in, or acquired by, immemorial or long-continued use and enjoyment; as, a prescriptive right of title; pleading the continuance and authority of long custom. The right to be drowsy in protracted toil has become prescriptive. J. M. Mason.

ter of the body, and held there with the left hand grasping it at the lower band, and the right hand grasping the small of the stock, in token of respect, as in saluting a superior officer; also, the position taken at such a command.

act of offering a clergyman to the bishop or ordinary for institution in a benefice; the right of presenting a clergyman. If the bishop admits the patron's presentation, the clerk so admitted is next to be instituted by him. Blackstone.

Having the right of presentation, or offering a clergyman to the bishop for institution; as, advowsons are presentative, collative, or donative. Blackstone.

An upright case or closet for the safe keeping of articles; as, a clothes press. Shak.

The character, right, or claim of a pretender. Swift.

As by right or title; arrogantly; presumptuously. Collier.

claim laid; assumption; pretension. Spenser. Primogeniture can not have any pretense to a right of solely inheriting property or power. Locke. I went to Lambeth with Sir R. Brown's pretense to the wardenship of Merton College, Oxford. Evelyn.

The act of pretending, or laying claim; the act of asserting right or title. The arrogant pretensions of Glengarry contributed to protract the discussion. Macaulay.

e writ or commencement of a suit by fine. Blackstone. -- Primer seizin (Feudal Law), the right of the king, when a tenant in capite died seized of a knight's fee, to receive of the heir, if of full age, one year's profits of the land if in possession, and half a year's profits if the land was in reversion expectant on…

The exclusive right of inheritance which belongs to the eldest son. Thus in England the right of inheriting the estate of the father belongs to the eldest son, and in the royal family the eldest son of the sovereign is entitled to the throne by primogeniture. In exceptional cases, among the female children, the crown d…

on (a), under Plane. -- Principal of a quadric (Geom.), three planes each of which is at right angles to the other two, and bisects all chords of the quadric perpendicular to the plane, as in an ellipsoid. -- Principal point (Persp.), the projection of the point of sight upon the plane of projection. -- Principal ra…

f the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection. Heb. vi. 1. A good principle, not rightly understood, may prove as hurtful as a bad. Milton.

A right belonging to the crown of England, of taking two tuns of wine from every ship importing twenty tuns or more, -- one before and one behind the mast. By charter of Edward I. butlerage was substituted for this. Blackstone.