Search the Dictionary

Precedence; preëminence; first rank. [Obs.] Then give me leave to have prerogative. Shak.

Previous sentiment, conception, or opinion; previous apprehension; especially, an antecedent impression or conviction of something unpleasant, distressing, or calamitous, about to happen; anticipation of evil; foreboding.

Precedent. [Obs.] Bacon.

To suppose beforehand; to imply as antecedent; to take for granted; to assume; as, creation presupposes a creator. Each [kind of knowledge] presupposes many necessary things learned in other sciences, and known beforehand. Hooker.

The act of presupposing; an antecedent implication; presumption.

Passed through; antecedent; previous; as, preterient states. [R.]

Going before in time; being or happening before something else; antecedent; prior; as, previous arrangements; a previous illness. The dull sound . . . previous to the storm, Rolls o'er the muttering earth. Thomson. Previous question. (Parliamentary Practice) See under Question, and compare Closure. -- Previous to, bef…

Beforehand; antecedently; as, a plan previously formed.

The quality or state of being previous; priority or antecedence in time.

Preceding in the order of time; former; antecedent; anterior; previous; as, a prior discovery; prior obligation; -- used elliptically in cases like the following: he lived alone [in the time] prior to his marriage.

The quality or state of being prior or antecedent in time, or of preceding something else; as, priority of application.

idence and balancing of probabilities. Buckminster. We do not call for evidence till antecedent probabilities fail. J. H. Newman.

Previous; antecedent. Glanvill.

forward in time; acting with foresight; -- opposed to retrospective. The French king of Sweden are circumspect, industrious, and prospective, too, in this affair. Sir J. Child.

A credence table; -- so called by the Eastern or Greek Church.

hrough generations for their puerile affectation of Roman forms, models, and historic precedents. De Quincey.

A combining form meaning five, five times, fivefold; as, quinquefid, five-cleft; quinquedentate, five-toothed.

anks, to supply the whole number, or a competent number. -- To take rank of, to have precedence over, or to have the right of taking a higher place than.pull rank, to insist on one's own prerogative or plan of action, by right of a higher rank than that of one suggesting a different plan

A convulsive disease, attended with ravenous hunger, not uncommon in Sweden and Germany. It was so called because supposed to be caused by eating corn with which seeds of jointed charlock (Raphanus raphanistrum) had been mixed, but the condition is now known to be a form of ergotism.

To allow, as a custom, tradition, or the like; to give credence or acceptance to. Many other things there be which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, and pots. Mark vii. 4.