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The act of referring; reference. Laud.

The act of choosing, or the state of being chosen; preference. [R.] Natural preferment of the one . . . before the other. Sir T. Browne.

An eager, and sometimes an inordinate, desire for preferment, honor, superiority, power, or the attainment of something. Cromwell, I charge thee, fling a way ambition: By that sin fell the angels. Shak. The pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand more acres. Burke.

The first year's profits of a spiritual preferment, anciently paid by the clergy to the pope; first fruits. In England, they now form a fund for the augmentation of poor livings.

An ecclesiastical living and church preferment, as in the Church of England; a church endowed with a revenue for the maintenance of divine service. See Advowson.

dispute about a purchase; to bargain; to haggle or higgle; to negotiate. To chaffer for preferments with his gold. Dryden.

mediate charge of the cathedral and its estates. -- Dean of peculiars, a dean holding a preferment which has some peculiarity relative to spiritual superiors and the jurisdiction exercised in it. [Eng.] -- Rural dean, one having, under the bishop, the especial care and inspection of the clergy within certain parishes…

rank; honorable station; high office, political or ecclesiastical; degree of excellence; preferment; exaltation. Macaulay. And the king said, What honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this Esth. vi. 3. Reuben, thou art my firstborn, . . . the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power. Gen. xlix. 3.…

either in rank, office, or celebrity; social or moral loftiness; high rank; distinction; preferment. Milton. You 've too a woman's heart, which ever yet Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty. Shak.

cate (a candidate, a measure, etc.). (b) To seek to acquire or attain to (wealth, honor, preferment, etc.) (c) To complete for (a reward, election, etc.). (d) To make the object of one's labors, studies, etc. He was as ready to go in for statistics as for anything else. Dickens. -- To go in to or unto. (a) To enter the…

uing; a declaimer. With them join'd all th' harangues of the throng, That thought to get preferment by the tongue. Dryden.

e one, Wolsey, directly his subject by birth; the other, his subject occasionally by his preferment. Fuller.

Any clergyman having ecclesiastical preferment; one who is in orders, or is licensed to preach; a preacher. He hears the parson pray and preach. Longfellow. Parson bird (Zoöl.), a New Zealand bird (Prosthemadera Novæseelandiæ) remarkable for its powers of mimicry and its ability to articulate words. Its color is glossy…

The first fruit; the first year's whole profit of an ecclesiastical preferment. The primitias of your parsonage. Spenser.

n rank or honor; also, the condition of being advanced, encouraged, or exalted in honor; preferment. Milton. Promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. Ps. lxxv. 6.

rver. [Obs.] They think herein we serve the time, because thereby we either hold or seek preferment. Hooker.

One who practices simony, or who buys or sells preferment in the church. Ayliffe.

The crime of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferment; the corrupt presentation of any one to an ecclesiastical benefice for money or reward. Piers Plowman.

te; to mimic; to personate. (k) To find place for; to dispose of; as, more scholars than preferments can take off. [R.] Bacon. -- To take on, to assume; to take upon one's self; as, to take on a character or responsibility. -- To take one's own course, to act one's pleasure; to pursue the measures of one's own choice…

emporizers, ready to embrace and maintain all that is, or shall be, proposed, in hope of preferment. Burton.