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Precedency   Listen
noun
Precedency, Precedence  n.  
1.
The act or state of preceding or going before in order of time; priority; as, one event has precedence of another.
2.
The act or state of going or being before in rank or dignity, or the place of honor; right to a more honorable place; superior rank; as, barons have precedence of commoners. "Which of them (the different desires) has the precedency in determining the will to the next action?"
Synonyms: Antecedence; priority; preeminence; preference; superiority.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Precedency" Quotes from Famous Books



... highly honoured to have been but knights in Queen Elizabeth's time, were advanced, then the fruits began to appear. The greater nobility were undervalued; the ancient baronage saw inferior families take precedency over them; nobility lost its respect, and a parity in conversation was introduced which in English dispositions begot contempt; the king could not employ them all; some grew envious, some factious, some ingrateful, however obliged, ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... Asia, and Africa;—that Europe is divided into four empires, the Roman, Constantinopolitan, the Irish, and the Spanish." "The English advocates," we are told, "admitting the force of these allegations, claimed their precedency and rank from Henry's being monarch of Ireland, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... go thither for amusement. This is the paramount purpose, and even acknowledged merit or absolute superiority must give way to it. Does a man at Paris expect to see Moliere reproduced in proportion to his admitted precedency in the French drama? On the contrary, that very precedency argues such a familiarization with his works, that those who are in quest of relaxation will reasonably prefer any recent drama to that which, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... recourse to this device. 'Pray, Sir, (said he,) whether do you reckon Derrick or Smart[604] the best poet?' Johnson at once felt himself roused; and answered, 'Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... of the speaker—even to these I say, that, in so far as they were at all capable of an intellectual pleasure, those parts would be most attractive which were least occupied with the present business and the momentary details. This order of precedency in the interests of the speech held even for them; but to us, removing at every annual step we take in the century, to a greater distance from the mere business and partisan interests of the several cases, this secondary attraction is not merely the greater of the ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... advantageous 'tis, we now will prove: Folks laugh; your wife a pliant glove shall move; But, if you've twenty favourites around, A single syllable will ne'er resound. Whene'er you speak, each word has double force; At table, you've precedency of course, And oft will get the very nicest parts; Well pleased who serves you!—all the household smarts No means neglect your favour to obtain; You've full command; resistance would be vain. Whence this conclusion must directly spring: To be a cuckold ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... Duchess of Hamilton, of her own right, resigned her claim on her husband's death, the Earl was, by patent signed at Loo, 1690, created Duke of Hamilton, Marquis of Clydesdale, and Earl of Arran, with precedency from the original creation. His Grace took the oaths and his seat in the Scottish parliament in 1700: was famous there for his patriotism and eloquence, especially in the debates about the Union Bill, which Duke Hamilton opposed with all his strength, though he would not go ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... are Bishops (Vol. iii., p. 23.).—Why is Lord Crewe always called so, and not Bishop of Durham, considering his spiritual precedency? Was not Lord Bristol (who was an Earl) always ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various

... and Romney are named as privileged ports, from which it may be inferred, that the corporation flourished at that time,—and for this reason,—Hastings has always been considered the first port in precedency, which would not probably have been the case, if it had been one of the latest privileged. The charter of Edward I. mentions immunities granted to the Cinque Ports by William the Conqueror; and, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various

... civilised times, we may be asked, should there not be rank and honours, upon principles, which, independent of long custom, are certainly not less worthy, and which, when once allowed to be connected with elevation and precedency, would obtain the same dignity in our imagination? Why should not the knowledge, the skill, the expertness, the assiduity, and the spirited hazards of trade and commerce, when crowned with success, be entitled to give ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... of the study of verse. The elder brother was born in 1722, the younger in 1728. I must be forgiven if I dwell a little tediously on dates, for our inquiry depends upon the use of them. Without dates the whole point of that precedency of the Wartons, which I desire to bring out, is lost. The brothers began very early to devote themselves to the study of poetry, and in spite of the six years which divided them, they appear to have meditated in unison. Their writings bear a close resemblance to ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... recent visit of Lord Waterford to the "Holy Land," then to sojourn in the hostel or caravansera of the protecting Banks of that classic ground, that interesting young nobleman adopted, as the seat of his precedency, a Brobdignag hod, the private property of some descendant from one of the defunct kings of Ulster; at the close of an eloquent harangue; his lordship expressed an earnest wish that he should be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... vanity and inconstancy of the Greeks with the superstition and obstinacy of the Egyptians. The most trifling occasion, a transient scarcity of flesh or lentils, the neglect of an accustomed salutation, a mistake of precedency in the public baths, or even a religious dispute, [173] were at any time sufficient to kindle a sedition among that vast multitude, whose resentments were furious and implacable. [174] After the captivity of Valerian and the insolence of his son had relaxed the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... with pens and ink. Three post-captains in gallant array, with swords by their sides, our own captain being one, and three surgeons with lancets in their pockets, congregated with grave politeness, and taking their chairs according to precedency of rank, formed the Hygeian court. A fitting preparation was necessary, so the captains began to debate upon the various pretensions of the beautiful Phrynes of Cork—the three medical men, whether the plague was ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... hath none, any more than a dog or a sheep. No one twitteth him with ostentation above his means. No one accuses him of pride, or upbraideth him with mock humility. None jostle with him for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No wealthy neighbour seeketh to eject him from his tenement. No man sues him. No man goes to law with him. If I were not the independent gentleman that I am, rather than I would be a retainer to the great, a led captain, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... general descended from the worthy. I did expect to see the day, and, although I shall not see it, it must come at last, when he shall be treated as a madman or an impostor who dares to claim nobility or precedency, and cannot show his family name in the history of his country. Even he who can show it, and who cannot write his own under it in the same or as goodly characters, must submit to the imputation of degeneracy, from which the lowly and obscure are exempt." Good old Penn, too, is made a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... place of those things I wonder, those real standard things? Men perhaps, should you be a woman; the masculine point of view which governs our lives, which sets the standard, which establishes Whitaker's Table of Precedency, which has become, I suppose, since the war half a phantom to many men and women, which soon, one may hope, will be laughed into the dustbin where the phantoms go, the mahogany sideboards and the Landseer prints, Gods and Devils, Hell and so forth, leaving us all with an ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf

... ordinances of the mystery. These companies were not all equally regarded by either the sovereign or the citizens. Towards the close of the reign of Edward II. the more important companies separated from the less wealthy; and this distinction was soon so far recognized, that precedency was given to the following twelve companies:- 1. Mercers; 2. Grocers; 3. Drapers; 4. Fishmongers; 5. Goldsmiths; 6. Skinners; 7. Merchant Tailors; 8. Haberdashers; 9. Salters; 10. Ironmongers; 11. Vintners; 12. Cloth workers. In these companies the freemen from early times have been of two classes; ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen

... King Arthur's knights, so called from the round table at which they sat, so that when seated there might seem no precedency, numbered popularly at twelve, though reckoned ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... Stranger, whose Residence was uncertain, she knew her own Modesty in concealing it; and alas! she knew her Dumbness uncapable of ever revealing it, at least, it must never expect any Return; she had gather'd from her Sister's Discourse, that she was her Rival; a Rival, who had the Precedency in Age, as the Advantage in Wit, and Intreague, which want of Speech render'd her uncapable of; these Reflections, as they drew her farther from the dear Object, brought her nearer Despair; her Sister was gone that Morning ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... misunderstood and often not understood at all. When he declared himself the Messiah, the people would have made him a king by force! Even the apostles frequently grossly failed to appreciate his spirit and aims, wrenched unwarrantable inferences from his words, and quarrelled for the precedency in his coming kingdom and for seats at his right hand. In numerous cases it is glaringly plain that his ideas were far from their conceptions of them. We have no doubt the same was true in many ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... one of the three Estates of the Realm—Lords Spiritual, Lords Temporal, and Commons (not, as is so often said, King, Lords, and Commons). The Archbishop of Canterbury is the first Peer of the Realm, and has precedency immediately after the blood royal. The Archbishop of York has precedency over all Dukes, not being of royal blood, and over all the great officers of State, except the Lord Chancellor. He has the privilege of crowning the ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes

... Boetius I have. From Scotland, I have received a large account of Lord Cromerty, which will appear in my next edition: as my copy is in the press, I do not exactly remember if there is the Tract on Precedency: he wrote a great number of things, and was held it) great ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... in his mirth. Folly, he thought, could be as effectually corrected by the tickling of a feather, as by the lash of the satirist. When Lady Margaret M'Gregor, and Lady Mary Macintosh, for instance, had almost forced their unhappy partners into a quarrel to support their respective claims to precedency, Dr. Campbell, who was appealed to as the relation of both the furious fair ones, decided the difference expeditiously, and much to the amusement of the company, by observing, that, as the pretensions of each of the ladies were incontrovertible, and precisely ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... of her domestics. Immediately behind walked, or rather lagged, the executioner with his weapons, looking more like unto one that was going to execution. Mause came next, then the remainder of the household, not one of them disposed to quarrel about precedency. The room to which they were tending was low, dark, and unfurnished, save with the exuviae of other parts of the premises. Rats and lumber were its chief occupants. A few steps accomplished the descent, the chamber having less of the nature of cellarage than that ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... could be done for him, and therefore he ought to be rejected. But the Marquis clung to his daughter. As the man was absolutely a Duke, according to the laws of all the Heralds, and all the Courts, and all the tables of precedency and usages of peerage in Christendom, he could not de-grade himself even by any motion of his own. He was the eldest and the legitimate son of the last Duca di Crinola,—so the Marquis said,—and as such was a fitting aspirant for the hand of the daughter of an English peer. ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... a day disappeared, but the Landhofmeisterin's power grew greater, and her ambition became each day more tremendous. She was treated with royal honours, and the court customs were so arranged that her kin should take precedency of all. ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... his name is of a German offspring; and says he is a fish that feeds clean and purely, in the swiftest streams, and on the hardest gravel; and that he may justly contend with all fresh water fish, as the Mullet may with all sea fish, for precedency and daintiness of taste; and that being in right season, the most dainty palates have allowed ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... little societies represents, of course, the tendency of the upper stratum of the industrial classes. In their own eyes they naturally represented the progressive element of society. They were Whigs—for 'radicalism' was not yet invented—but Whigs of the left wing; accepting the aristocratic precedency, but looking askance at the aristocratic prejudices. They were rationalists, too, in principle, but again within limits: openly avowing the doctrines which in the Established church had still to be sheltered by ostensible conformity to ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... believe nothing would so soon explode the practice as the public discouragement of it by such a society; where all our customs and habits, both in speech and behaviour, should receive an authority. All the disputes about precedency of wit, with the manners, customs, and usages of the theatre, would be decided here; plays should pass here before they were acted, and the critics might give their censures and damn at their pleasure; nothing would ever die which once received life at this original. The two theatres might ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe

... Huish sat there, preening his sinister vanity, glorying in his precedency in evil; and the villainous courage and readiness of the creature shone out of him like a candle from a lantern. Dismay and a kind of respect seized hold on Davis in his own despite. Until that moment, he had seen the clerk always hanging back, always listless, uninterested, ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... of the same class, is not settled here throughout. The general rule of adjusting here and elsewhere, is the relative rank of their respective masters or sovereigns. No Minister, for instance, of the second class, would dispute precedency with a Minister of the Emperor of the same class; but we have seen a Minister of the present Empress claim precedency of a Minister of France of the same class, though generally the Ministers of France have been in ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... the solar system, that it placed the fire, the noblest element, in the centre of the universe. This was a remnant of the notion that the order of nature must be perfect, and that perfection consisted in conformity to rules of precedency in dignity, either real or conventional. Again, reverting to numbers: certain numbers were perfect, therefore those numbers must obtain in the great phenomena of nature. Six was a perfect number, that is, equal to the sum of all its factors; an additional reason why there must be exactly six ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... traitor. A few minutes later, when he has returned to his hiding place, he sees Elsa appear in bridal array, followed by her women, and by Ortrud, who is very richly clad. But at the church door Ortrud insolently presses in front of Elsa, claiming the right of precedence as her due, and taunting her for marrying a man who has won her by magic arts only, and whose name and origin she does not ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber

... your host and hostess in a fuss, apologizing, asking questions, and boring you to death; dinner at length announced, but no chance of extrication from the dull drawing-room, because the etiquette of precedence is not rightly understood, and nobody knows who ought to be led out first; all the way down stairs a dead silence, and then the difficulty of distributing the company almost equals the previous dilemma of the drawing-room: wives are wittily ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various

... take the place of every other thought and ambition. It is necessary, of course, that the routine of living should be sufficiently preserved for the health of the others not to be affected, but matters of comfort and well-being for all take precedence of everything else. ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway

... over these proceedings I explain them to myself approximately as follows: the eighteen centurions from Britain treated each other as if they all felt on terms of complete mutual equality, none ever assumed any rights of superiority, seniority, precedence, or authority, none was ever invested with any right of permanent or temporary leadership. If some whim prompted any one of the eighteen to take the lead in emptying an ergastulum or breaking in a town gate, or sacking a shop, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... that his was the very oldest family seated in this delectable spot. The young Montgomerys could with perfect propriety claim precedence at all the stagnant pools that offered superior advantages as yielding a rich harvest of tadpoles. While the mature intelligence might have considered these miniature lakes as highly undesirable, the young Montgomerys were not ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... had only to choose one or a hundred attuned responsive to her every mood, every caprice. Lonely? With the men of New York crowding, shouldering, crushing their way to her feet? Lonely? With the women of New York struggling already for precedence in her favour?—omen significant of the days to come, of those future years diamond-linked in one ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... causes one to mourn for the backwardness of this country, here is the bright jewel in her crown. China is, as far as I know, the only nation which has advanced beyond the so-called heroic age when the soldier claims precedence. England and America must be ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... refer to the "Tchin," or Russian social hierarchy. There are fourteen grades in the Tchin assigning relative rank and precedence to the members of the various departments of the State, civil, military, naval, court, scientific and educational. The military and naval grades from the 14th up to the 7th confer personal nobility only, whilst above the 7th hereditary rank is acquired. In the remaining departments, civil or ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... came in, breathing noticeably; and her round head, smoothly but economically decorated with the hair of an honest woman, seemed to be lingering far in the background of the Alpine bosom which took precedence of the rest of her everywhere; but when she was all in the room, it was to be seen that her breathing was the result of hospitable haste to greet the visitor, and her hand, not so dry as Neptune's Fountain, suggested that she had paused for only the briefest ablutions. George accepted this ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... avaricious as he is cruel; though he says with a disagreeable smile, that the woman herself is his real object. The touch to make this terrible man complete comes at the very end. The Duke and the envoy prepare to descend the staircase; the latter bows, to give precedence to the man with the nine hundred years' old name: but the Duke, with a purr like a tiger, places his arm around the shoulder of the visitor, and they take the first step. Just then the master of the palace calls attention casually to a ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... nag, but these fell far short of Uncle Jimpson's dreams. A coach and four at that moment would not have compensated him for the fact that a complaisant, red-headed furnaceman, a "po' white trash" arrived but yesterday, was being allowed to pass the tray that by all rights of precedence belonged to him. ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... was awful! It proved that each mind saw clearly the impossibility of anything being devised, and that a deadly struggle for precedence was inevitable. ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... twenty stories which follow are arranged in the alphabetical order of their authors' names. This arrangement does not imply any precedence ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... said in an undertone to her husband, as soon as the guests had returned to the drawing-room. And, giving orders that her carriage should be summoned immediately, she left the house without speaking to any one, and with the air of a peeress of England outraged in her rights of precedence! ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa

... which sported fearlessly in its midst had likewise become "our squirrel." The imposing, dignified college buildings had ceased to elicit open-mouthed observance, and among the student-body surnames had yielded precedence to Christian names—oftener, though, to some outlandish sobriquet which satirized an idiosyncrasy of temperament ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... assembly which met independently of the summons or the presence of the sovereign, was decisively set aside; and the House addressed itself to the great issues involved in the late revolution. The question of religion, as at the root of the whole controversy, took precedence of every other. The first proceeding showed the national instinct for the logical conduct of human affairs. The estates instructed the ministers to draw up a statement of Protestant doctrine, which might serve at once as a chart for their future guidance and a justification for their present and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... The divine takes precedence of the physician in this extraordinary production. He begins by preaching a sermon at his unfortunate patient. Having thrown him into a cold sweat by his spiritual sudorific, he attacks him with his material remedies, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... pride, and season it with his ambition, this formed food and stimulus enough for him-a sustaining principle equal to natural nutriment. But in his sleep, when nature asserted her power, and the physical system claimed precedence over the brain, then the gnawings of hunger could not be stilled; and thus he awoke, and, as we have said, sought his canvass to drive away the demon; for it was a demon-a tormenting fiend to ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... wait upon the readers of this history are, I should hope, by this time obvious. Among them must be reckoned the privilege of taking precedence of Admiral Buzza—of paying a visit to "The Bower" not only several minutes in advance of that great man, but moreover on ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the dress of the Boston ladies, occupied the greatest part of my two last letters. It is but just to say something of their more laudable qualities; amongst which, maternal affection deservedly claims precedence.—The barbarous customs of Europe, in this particular, have not as yet, and I hope never will be, practised here. Mothers in this country are so much attached to their tender offspring, as to forego all the pleasures of life (or ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... not obliterate the lines which separate righteousness from unrighteousness. He enjoins tenderness: but much as he loves to see that feature in his disciples, he places it second to faithfulness. The order of precedence as regards these two has been determined by royal ordinance—"first pure, then peaceable." "Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another," said the Lord at another time (Mark ix.), plainly giving faithfulness the first place, and requiring that gentleness should press ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... indeed put something of historical record and something of his best interpretation of mysterious natural phenomena into his legendary lore, but there is something else, we are led to believe, that takes precedence over all other considerations in the mind of the primitive (as well as in the minds of all of the rest of us) and that is getting on in the world, a ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett

... a false reputation, for precedence among the Bhikshus, for lordship in the convents, for worship ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... his conduct through which an observer can trace a filial wish to uphold, and throw respect around, the station of his mother, may be mentioned his insisting, while a boy, on being called "George Byron Gordon"—giving thereby precedence to the maternal name,—and his continuing, to the last, to address her as "the Honourable Mrs. Byron,"—a mark of rank to which, he must have been aware, she had no claim whatever. Neither does it appear that, in his habitual manner ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... curious thing,' he rambled on, 'that potato takes quite a good place among the toys. You see, rank and precedence down here is entirely a question of age; that is, of the length of time that any plaything has been in the possession of a child; and all kinds of ugly old things hold the first rank; whereas the most costly and beautiful works of art have often been smashed or lost by the spoilt children ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... first she was inspired to be something which was not what the rest were, and to be that something for the sake of the rest. Recognised as useful, even indispensable, she took the place of eldest of the three in all but precedence; was the head of the fallen family, and bore, in her own heart, its anxieties and shames. She had been, by snatches of a few weeks at a time, to an evening school outside, and got her sister and brother sent to day schools by desultory starts, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... play!"[6] So much personal honour was considered to be involved in the conduct of a Masque, that even this committee of illustrious men was on the point of being broken up by too serious a discussion concerning precedence; and the Masque had nearly not taken place, till they hit on the expedient of throwing dice to decide on their rank in the procession! On this jealousy of honour in the composition of a Masque, I discovered, what hitherto had escaped the knowledge, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Wilderness of Zin, because on it the Israelites were commanded to observe the law; (2.) Wilderness of Kadesh, because on it the Israelites were consecrated to receive the law; (3.) Wilderness of Kedemoth, because precedence was there given to Israel over all other nations; (4.) Wilderness of Paran, because there the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied; (5.) Wilderness of Sinai, because from it enmity came to be cherished to the Gentiles. It was denominated ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... heart with the electrical fire of poetry, and his language is more soft and persuasive. The drama is on the whole, however, much more indebted to Sophocles, to whom Aristotle, who is certainly the very highest authority, gives the precedence in point of general arrangement, disposition of parts, and characteristic manner, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... Irish Bag-pipe.—Very little is known about this instrument. It is mentioned in the ancient Brehon Laws, said to date from the 5th century (they are cited in compilations of the 10th century), in describing the order of precedence of the king's bodyguard and household in the Crith Gabhlach: "Poets, harpers, pipers, horn-blowers and jugglers have their place in the south-east part of the house."[12] The word used for (bag-) pipers is Cuislennaigh, a word associated with reed instruments ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... all came Ralph. As leader of the party he had thought it proper to give precedence to the rest. The lady took his hand as he came by, the same hand that had received her husband's tender care; but there was something in his pallid, grief-marked face, in the brown eyes filled with tears, in the sensitive trembling of the delicate lips, as she looked down on him, ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... Further, the angelic nature is nobler than the corporeal creature. But the corporeal creature straightway from its creation was made perfect and complete; nor did its lack of form take precedence in time, but only in nature, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. i, 15). Therefore neither did God create the angelic nature imperfect and incomplete. But its formation and perfection are derived from its beatitude, whereby it enjoys God. Therefore ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... their embedment in the mud. When the entire collection of our Irish Percy—James Hardiman—shall have been given to a public (and soon may such a one come) that can relish them in their native dress, they will be entitled to undisputed precedence ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... arbitrarily governed by the accident of birth, but where men are assigned their positions in the social scale through a juster, higher, more liberal verdict, the young Carolinian gained facile admission into the most exclusive circles abroad, and even took precedence of individuals who made as loud a boast of noble blood and hereditary titles as though the concentrated virtues of all their ancestors had been transmitted to them through ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... The schools became a scene Of solemn farce, where ignorance in stilts, His cap well lined with logic not his own, With parrot tongue performed the scholar's part, Proceeding soon a graduated dunce. Then compromise had place, and scrutiny Became stone-blind, precedence went in truck, And he was competent whose purse was so. A dissolution of all bonds ensued, The curbs invented for the mulish mouth Of headstrong youth were broken; bars and bolts Grew rusty by disuse, and massy gates Forgot their office, opening ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... girl heeded him not. Of a sudden, Frederick raised his eyes and looked directly into hers. The jealousy that had risen tiger-like in his breast, forcing him from her, and demanding that he should never look upon her face again, yielded precedence to a nobler and stronger thought. He would help the girl with her living secret—help her, and make her better. Long and fixedly he studied the beautiful face, until he had read to the finish the tale of passion and longing. The ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... on a "sick member." Whenever circumstances permitted she gladly served as pastoral assistant for her father, but she always felt that raising the family was her one big job, and nothing was allowed to take precedence of it. As she walked that afternoon down Maple Street,—seemingly so-called because it was bordered with grand old elms,—she felt at peace with all the world. The very sunshine beaming down upon her through the huge skeletons of the leafless elms, was not more care-free ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... occasions, an able diplomatist, and particularly at the conferences of Nimeguen when acting as ambassador in 1673. Ob. 1686, aet. suae 79,—VIDE HIS LETTERS TO LOUIS XIV. IN THE APPEND.] and that, this day, being the day of the entrance of an Embassador from Sweden, they intended to fight for the precedence. Our King, I heard, ordered that no Englishman should meddle in the business, but let them do what they would. And to that end all the soldiers in the town were in arms all the day long, and some of the train-bands in the City; and a great bustle through the City all the ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... are several degrees of Preference stock, some taking precedence of others as to interest; a first preference may be as good as debenture stock, whilst the last preference of the same railway company may be no better ...
— Everybody's Guide to Money Matters • William Cotton, F.S.A.

... of the Trent affair, assuming that "militia" uniforms must be after the style of the English force, which bears silver ornaments. The Canadian militia is, of course, on a different footing, and takes precedence after the regular army. I think, therefore, that for the sake of history and the prominent position of the Canadian militia in a warlike sense, and in view of services rendered, such as no other militia in the British service ever rendered, this point is worthy of revival and investigation. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... "He took precedence at once of the oldest man in the township, who was only eighty-four and not very bright. I can remember bragging at school about Gran'ther Pendleton, who'd be eighty-nine come next Woodchuck day, and could see to read without glasses. He had been ailing all his life, ever since the fever he took ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... Rohilcund, was the colonel's starting-point;—and thence on St Patrick's day[6] he set forward for Hurdwar, at the head of a retinue, the members of which, both quadruped and biped, he enumerates seriatim, giving the pas to the former—a precedence perhaps well merited by steeds up to such a welter weight under the climate of India, over such a set of unredeemed and thriftless knaves as he describes his native attendants. Accordingly, he gives the names and pedigrees of the whole stud, from "the buggy mare Maiden-head ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... to the banquet, he to one palace with the men, she to another with the women. For the Britons still observed the ancient custom of Troy, by which the men and women used to celebrate their festivals apart. When they had all taken their seats according to precedence, Caius, the sewer, in rich robes of ermine, with a thousand young noblemen, all in like manner clothed with ermine, served up the dishes. From another part, Bedoer, the butler, was followed with the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... through an Irish girl inheriting her American uncle's estates. So, steadily and happily, he pressed his suit. At his dinner-parties he gave her first place nearly always, and even broke the code controlling precedence when his secretary could be overruled. Thus Sheila was given honour when she did not covet it, and so it was that one day at Salem when the governor came to court her she was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... 4. A "Pung" has precedence over a "Chow" and if one player can pung the same discard that another player can chow, the former has the right ...
— Pung Chow - The Game of a Hundred Intelligences. Also known as Mah-Diao, Mah-Jong, Mah-Cheuk, Mah-Juck and Pe-Ling • Lew Lysle Harr

... an admirable piece of politeness and true breeding to give correct specimens of the turkey or the goose in the serious scenes of a dramatic representation, or while witnessing her Ladyship's confusion in a crowd of carriages combating for precedence in order to obtain an early appearance at Court. Reading he considers quite a bore, but attends the reading-room, which he enters, not to know what is worth reading and add a little knowledge to his slender ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... the young man, in this supreme moment of fate not refusing him that paternal title; "father," he repeated, with impassioned fervor, "father, every one of these men has precedence of me, in the right to be saved. For when I intervened between them and the lifeboats they were about to seize I promised them that I would see every one of them in safety before attempting to save myself. I promised them that I would be the very last ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... What nonsense," I cried on the evening of the fourteenth, as I cursed a wretched collar that would not be coerced.... When I reached the Wegstaffe mansion I found my progress retarded by half a hundred guests, who fought, but politely, mind you, for precedence. At last, rumpled and red, I reached the men's dressing room, and the first person I encountered was Tompkins, Percy Tompkins, a man I hated for his cocksure manner of speech and know-it-all style on the subject of music. Often had he crushed my callow musical ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... cut off their hair. He also explains, as being greatly exaggerated, the accusations brought against his clergy of engaging in traffic; and promises to do all in his power to check them. One of the decrees settles the question of precedence between him and the Audiencia; but, as that tribunal has been suppressed, it is now useless. Salazar takes this opportunity to defend himself against the aspersions cast upon him in this matter, and in regard to certain legal proceedings ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair

... procession of men and women throng to the Muenster, where Elsa is to be united to her protector. Telramund tries vainly to accuse the stranger; he is pushed back and silenced. As Elsa is about to enter the church, Ortrud steps forward, claiming the right of {175} precedence. Elsa, frightened, repents too late having protected her. Ortrud upbraids her with not even having asked her husband's name and descent. All are taken aback, but Elsa defends her husband, winning everybody by her ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... general truth closely connected with the above; and in common with it underlying explanations of all progress, and therefore the progress of organisms—a truth which may indeed be considered as taking precedence of it in respect of time, if not in respect of generality. This truth is, that the condition of homogeneity is a condition ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... first,—I will not say the first, For such precedence upon such occasions Will oftentimes make deadly quarrels burst Out between friends as well as allied nations: The Briton must be bold who really durst Put to such trial John Bull's partial patience, As say that Wellington ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... without feeling the excitement, the animation, of change, of discovery. "It is a remarkable fact," says M. Sainte-Beuve, "and an inversion of what is true of other languages, that, in French, prose has always had the precedence over poetry." Du Bellay's prose is perfectly transparent, flexible, and chaste. In many ways it is a more characteristic example of the culture of the Pleiad than any of its verse; and those who love the whole movement ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... in a state of unrest. He was obliged to wear his good clothes, a great part of the time, for he was continually going on errands to the village, and these errands were so important that they took precedence of everything else. It gave me a melancholy sort of pleasure, sometimes, to do Jonas's work when ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton

... enabled me to comprehend more fully the arrangement of the table. The two ends were occupied by two partners of the house. And the host seemed to have adopted Addison's ideas as to the literary precedence of his guests. A popular poet had the post of honor, opposite to whom was a hot-pressed traveller in quarto, with plates. A grave-looking antiquarian, who had produced several solid works, which were much quoted and little read, was treated with ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... The critical opinions gain their possibly dogmatic tone rather from a desire for brevity than from any hope—or wish—that they should be swallowed whole. No attempt to set up a standard of comparative merit or precedence has been made, though it is inevitable that certain music-makers should interest one more than certain others even more worthy in ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... inflame the curiosity of the town, by which it had been overlooked. Notwithstanding this general unanimity in the college, a private animosity had long subsisted between the two rivals I have mentioned, on account of precedence, to which both laid claim, though, by a majority of votes, it had been decided in favour of the present chairman. The grudge indeed never proceeded to any degree of outrage or defiance, but manifested itself at ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... adversity a year ago, he loved her still better in prosperity, when she was able to do so much more for his comfort and amusement. He was rarely out of her sight, the companion of all her rides and rambles, the exacting charge of her life. Brian Walford was not slow to perceive that the boy took precedence of him in all his wife's thoughts, that the boy's society was more agreeable to her than that of her husband, and his health and happiness of more importance. As a wife she was amiable, submissive, dutiful; but it needed no hypersensitiveness on the husband's part to warn ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... the best cemented confederacies. English, Prussians, Danes, Wirtemburgers, Dutch, Hanoverians, and Hessians, were blended in such nearly equal proportions, that the arms of no one state could be said by its numerical preponderance to be entitled to the precedence. But the consummate address, splendid talents, and conciliatory manners of Marlborough, as well as the brilliant valour which the English auxiliary force had displayed on many occasions, had won for them the lead, as they had formerly done when in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... therefore, that he was entitled to succeed to the kingdom as the grandson and heir of the monarch who was Alexander's immediate successor, and whose claims were consequently, as he contended, entitled to take precedence of ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... that Athens held there was no difference between to command and to obey, except so far as was best for the interests of Greece; that—as on the field of Plataea, when the Tegeans asserted precedence over the Athenians, we, the Athenian army, at once exclaimed, through your voice, Aristides, 'We come here to fight the Barbarian, not to dispute amongst ourselves; place us where you will'[9]:—even so now, while the allies give ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... review of his position. He would have liked to do many things to Wally, beginning with ordering him out of the theatre, but prudence restrained him. He wanted Wally's work. He needed Wally in his business: and, in the theatre, business takes precedence of personal feelings. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... leave the church in a row with the clergyman at their head, but so great was the estimation in which old Huw was universally held, for the purity of his life and his poetical gift, that the clergyman of the parish abandoning his claim to precedence, always insisted on the good and inspired old man's leading the file, himself following immediately in his rear. Huw wrote on various subjects, mostly in common and easily understood measures. He was great in satire, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... after this, Madame de Saint- Simon, who was then with child, feeling herself unwell, and tired of standing, seated herself upon the first cushion she could find. It so happened, that in the position she thus occupied, she had taken precedence of Madame d'Armagnac by two degrees. Madame d'Armagnac,, perceiving it, spoke to her upon the subject. Madame de Saint-Simon, who had only placed herself there for a moment, did ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... suspicion of 'bad form' in anything of purely local growth. This is the class which maintains an air of portentous solemnity in public ceremonials, and is liable at any moment to be convulsed by a question of precedence at ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... charge my servants—1. Not to interpose in any matter whatsoever; 2. Not to take more than their known fees; 3. Not to give any undue precedence to causes; 4. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various

... endowed with an inflexible will, and eminently fitted to assert those ultramontane principles which would make all temporal power subordinate to the Pope and his vicegerents on earth. His claim to take precedence even of the governor on certain public occasions indicates the extremes to which this resolute dignitary of the Church was prepared to go on ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... and with a brief wave of his hand he would have passed in first, but the officers of the law put him rather rudely aside and claimed precedence for their prisoner. ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... the matter. The old man, in his blue cloak, stood for a few moments politely disputing the question of precedence with his handsome son-in-law. Then the Captain bowed and passed in, and the old man ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... part of a comprehensive system. But we are told, besides, of we know not what obstruction to be encountered from prejudices of prescription, privileged and peculiar interests, the jealous pride of venerable institutions, assumed rights of station and rank, punctilios of precedence, the tenacity of parties who find their advantage in things as they are, and so forth; all to ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... although the Dinka considered himself of a higher class than a Pongo. A Noba regarded himself as superior to all others. But by degrees I established a principle that was generally accepted by them all—that an old soldier with a good reputation should take precedence of all others, without reference to caste or tribe. Thus, the aim of all young privates would be to become old soldiers, and to rise in rank according to their merits. There were several excellent examples of good soldiers in ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... or conveyancers, who prepare deeds. 3 Stewart's Blackst. 26, note. Those who are regularly called, however, may take upon them the causes of all suitors. Such of the barristers as have a patent of precedence, as king's counsel, sit within the Bar, with the serjeants; all others are ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood

... other life which endured forever. True, Heinz had but a few short moments to devote to this farewell, the cause of the faithful follower who, unasked, had unselfishly endured unutterable tortures for him, took precedence of everything else and would permit ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... letters from Bagot's British friends and Canadian political advisers. These constitute the most important evidence which exists for Bagot's year of office. In the same way, the private correspondence, carried on between Earl Grey and the Earl of Elgin from {ix} 1847 to 1852, takes precedence of all other Canadian material of that period; and is, indeed, the most enlightening series of documents in existence ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... had the precedence over the rest, and took the lead; and, as the priests and people in each diocese obeyed their Bishop, so in more general matters the ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... Arras, that Charles VI. was dead, it occurred to him immediately that if he attended the obsequies of the English King of France he would be obliged, French prince as he was, and cousin-german of Charles VI., to yield precedence to John, Duke of Bedford, regent of France, and uncle of the new king, Henry VI. He resolved to hold aloof, and contented himself with sending to Paris chamberlains to make his excuses and supply his place with the regent. On the 11th of November, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... a share of the import duties on coal was granted, and soon constituted the greater part of the rebuilding fund. In 1673 an enlarged commission of over a hundred members was nominated by royal warrant, with the Lord Mayor at its head, who took precedence over the Primate and the Bishop; and Wren laid his first design before them, of which a model was made. This was a kind of Greek cross; the external order was the Corinthian, with Attic above. It bore a general resemblance to a rotunda, and was crowned with a ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock

... were disconcerted to come next; but their daughter had been properly honored, and both were too fond of Blanche to be troubled about the precedence. Mr. Froler stood by the governor, and announced the names of the members of the party; for His Excellency could hardly be expected to remember them. But he was very cordial to all of them, speaking in his broken English, except to the pacha and Louis. Some of the gentlemen ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... chair of his ancestors, his sturdy legs sticking straight out in front of him, utterly lost in the depths of gold and royal velvet. Two-score or more of his courtiers and as many noble ladies of the realm stood soberly in the places assigned them by the laws of precedence. The Grand Duke advanced between the respectful lines and knelt at the foot of ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... bishop who presides in the metropolis, and who has to take thought of the whole province; because all men of business come together from every quarter to the metropolis. Wherefore it is decreed that he have precedence in rank, and that the other bishops do nothing extraordinary without him, according to the ancient canon which prevailed from the time of our fathers, or such things only as pertain to their own particular parishes and the districts subject ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... months rent of premises, fee to be credited on account of rent, if application is successful, and to be returned is application is unsuccessful. In case of more than one application for same lot the first application takes precedence. ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs

... fallen they came to the cellar, convoked for the purpose of holding a council to consider public affairs; to which meeting, in virtue of the Papyrian and other laws, their lawful wives were admitted. The rats wished to pass before the mice, and serious quarrels about precedence nearly spoiled everything; but a big rat gave his arm to a mouse, and the gaffer rats and gammer mice being paired off in the same way, all were soon seated on their rumps, tails in air, muzzles stretched, whiskers stiff, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... common in rural parishes till about forty years ago, and perhaps till a still later period. And when heritors chanced to be pretty equally matched, there was sometimes an unpleasant contest as to who was entitled to the precedence in having the first bow. A case of this kind once occurred in the parish of Lanark, which was carried so far as to be laid before the Presbytery; but they, not considering themselves "competent judges of the points of honour and precedency ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... I? What's Charles to me, or Oliver, But as my own advancement hangs on one of them? I to myself am chief.—I know, Some shallow mouths cry out, that I am smit With the gauds and shew of state, the point of place, And trick of precedence, the ducks, and nods, Which weak minds pay to rank. 'Tis not to sit In place of worship at the royal masques, Their pastimes, plays, and Whitehall banquetings, For none of these, Nor yet to be seen whispering with some great ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... derogatory to the dignity of your Majesty, and to the character of your Majesty's Government if, in the present state of things between the British and Spanish Governments the Spanish Ambassador should, by a dilatoriness on the part of your Majesty's Government, be allowed to raise a question about precedence with your Majesty's representative at Paris; it would be very inconvenient if that question were decided unfavourably to your Majesty's representative, and very undesirable that he should appear to be under obligation to the French Government for ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... far more attractive than the dark offices in the Rue Bergere. So they removed to the Credit Lyonnais on the first of May. But as they were in the chief's office taking their leave, the old banker said to Charles, when Alphonse had gone out (Alphonse always took precedence of Charles), "Sentiment won't do for a ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland

... were at that time disturbed owing to the precedence which had been given in a local festival to the Chinese, because they paid more money. The Filipinos claimed that, being in their home country, they should have had prior consideration and were entitled to it by law. The matter culminated in a protest, which ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... pavement; and the whole gave curious evidence of a kind fitted to picture to the imagination a background vista of antiquity, all the more remotely ancient in aspect from the venerable age of the object in front. Dry ground covered by wood, a lake, a morass, and then dry ground again, had all taken precedence, on the site of the tesselated pavement, in this instance, of an old Roman villa. But what was antiquity in connection with a Roman villa, to antiquity in connection with the Scuir of Eigg? Under the old foundations of this huge wall we find the remains of ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... work presents many difficult problems. Part of it is found in the heart of the book of Nehemiah; while another part is now found in the second half of the book of Ezra. It is not entirely clear whether this dislocation is due to the Chronicler, who desired to give Ezra, the priest and scribe, the precedence before Nehemiah, the layman, or to the mistake of a scribe. A recent writer (Professor Torrey, in Composition of Ezra-Neh.) has shown convincingly that the Ezra story in its present form is at least from the school to which the Chronicler belonged, if not from his own pen. Not only does it abound ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... differences between fashion in England and America, is that what might appear to the uninitiated as an almost exaggerated display of hospitality, is as chic here as it might be thought over-done in London. American hostesses are also very particular as to precedence: who sits next to whom, or goes in first, second or third. I must confess to being remiss in these ways, and when an American lady at one of these dinners asked me if I minded my daughter, Elizabeth Bibesco, going in or out—I forget which it was—in front of me, I imagined she was ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith

... English Lord comes to an American town he puts it to the bad in one week. Socially the whole place goes to pieces. Girls whose parents are in the hardware business and who used to call their father "pop" begin to talk of precedence and whether a Duchess Dowager goes in to dinner ahead of or behind a countess scavenger. After the young Lord has attended two dances and one tea-social in the Methodist Church Sunday School Building ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... kind of precentor stood up, and, having sounded the note on a pitch-pipe, sang a couple of lines by way of indicating the tune; then all the congregation stood up, and sang aloud, Mr Bradshaw's great bass voice being half a note in advance of the others, in accordance with his place of precedence as principal member of the congregation. His powerful voice was like an organ very badly played, and very much out of tune; but as he had no ear, and no diffidence, it pleased him very much to hear the fine loud sound. He was a tall, large-boned, iron man; stern, powerful, and ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... expenses in our enterprises. On sunday the 7th of January, 1838, I delivered again a sermon suitable to inspire the congregation for the great enterprise, and asked that those who were ready for co-operation, should come directly after the service in our school room. That was a step against all precedence. The catalogue of those who belonged to the congregation, was given to me before, and trustees took great care to collect large subscriptions for us. But all this should be rejected, and only those who would be ready to work with me for the great reformation ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar

... first list. Thus a great deal of excellent work has been done on these lists. None of them are complete for the whole dynasty, nor even for the part which they originally covered, and the known dated documents do not serve to fully restore them. But so far as they go, they must take the precedence of the King List, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... keen perception of their value, that he was comparatively indifferent to the revolutionary action which would attend on their application to a given state of things; whereas in the thoughts of Rose, as a practical man, existing facts had the precedence of every other idea, and the chief test of the soundness of a line of policy lay in the consideration whether it would work. This was one of the first questions, which, as it seemed to me, ever occurred to his mind. With ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... wondering how any one in her position could serve God. If such mischances as this were always to happen, she could never get through her work. And the work must be done. Mistress Winter was one of the last people in the world to permit religion to take precedence of housewifery. How then was poor Agnes ever to "make her salvation" ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt

... room all questions of rank and precedence are more or less waived. There are, of course, differences, especially when the wardroom, or abode of senior officers, does duty also as a gunroom for the juniors. But here there is camaraderie and an absence of iron discipline, although ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife

... are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of all the nations—if the duration of sorrows and the patience with which they are borne ennoble, the Jews are among the aristocracy of every land—if a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say to a National Tragedy lasting ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... large enough to warrant this fancy but by no means inactive post. In Washington they are much in demand by Senators' and Congressmen's wives suddenly translated from a small town where the banker's lady hobnobbed with the prosperous undertaker's family, to a city where the laws of social precedence are as rigid as at the court of the Hapsburgs and a good deal more complicated. But these young women must themselves have lived in Washington for many years, or they will be forced to divide their salary with a ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... Cargrim,' said the bishop, gently, 'that your ambition is apt to take precedence of your religious feelings, else you would hardly adopt so extreme a course as to ask me so bluntly for a living. If I deemed it advisable that you should be rector of Heathcroft, I should bestow ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... Morris, is like asking the left hand's opinion of the dexterity of the right. I have lived so long with the 'Brigadier'—know him so intimately—worked so constantly at the same rope, and thought so little of ever separating from him (except by precedence of ferriage over the Styx), that it is hard to shove him from me to the perspective distance—hard to shut my own partial eyes, and look at him through other people's. I will try, however; and, as it is done with but one foot off from the treadmill ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... Where she may even stand disgraced; We must allow to wealth and birth Precedence, which is due on earth: But our esteem is only due Unto the ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... or inversely pyramidal head; branchlets slender; spray coarse and not abundant; foliage bright green, dense, casting a deep shade; flowers profuse, the long, sterile catkins upon their darker background of leaves conspicuous upon the hill slopes at a great distance. A tree that may well dispute precedence with the white ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame

... down to meat. And thus were they seated. On one side of Geraint sat the young Earl, and Earl Ynywl beyond him; and on the other side of Geraint was the maiden and her mother. And after these all sat according to their precedence in honour. And they ate. And they were served abundantly, and they received a profusion of divers kind of gifts. Then they conversed together. And the young Earl invited Geraint to visit him next day. "I ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... measured, much as in the modern musical system we take a key-note and found our chords and scales upon it. The connection between musical and State affairs was so business-like in those days that the precedence of the various classes was fixed according to the musical grade: F, the base note of the oldest known scale, represented the Emperor; G, the Prime Minister; A, the loyal ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... bald-headed, gray-mustached major-general in command of the Anglian forces at Gin-Sin, two distinguished missionaries of many years' experience, several junior officers of the army, and a merchant or two. When dinner was announced they all went in, each taking precedence according to his station. Sam knew nothing of such matters, and was loath to advance until his host forced him to. He found a card with his name on it at the second cover on the right from his host. On his right was the card of a young captain. The place on his left and immediately ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... manner of woes, that one never hears of in prosperous seasons. Mr James says the actions for trespass are beyond all example; Mr Tucker declares his dog, that died the other day, was poisoned; and I never pass the Green but the women are even quarrelling for precedence at the pump." ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... session in regular order, allowing an average of one minute for each member to debate each bill. To get anything done, the House must proceed by special order, and as it is essential to pass the appropriations to keep up the government, a precedence was allowed to business reported by that committee which in effect gave it a position of mastery. O. R. Singleton of Mississippi, in the course of the same debate, declared that there was a "grievance which towers above all others as the Alps tower above the surrounding hills. It is the ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... best stewardess, and her deck-chair was to be always in the best place on the upper promenade deck; and there was to be no mistake about it; and if anybody questioned the right of Margarita da Cordova, the great lyric soprano, to absolute precedence during the whole voyage, from start to finish, her two maids would know the reason why, and make the captain and all the ship's company ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... that filtered Indian blood can take precedence and mastery of all the Anglo-Saxon material it's run ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... into chat with the new-comer, and it was necessary to remind him that we had the right of precedence. Every moment was of importance, for already there was time for a telegram to have arrived. Presently there would be time for its instructions to be acted on as well. And at this moment I realized, as I had not fully realized ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... warfare, and where human life is every day in danger—that is a quality of the first class—esteemed by all, but by none more than those who stand most in need of protection—the women. Often there as elsewhere—more often than elsewhere—does courage take precedence of mere personal appearance, and boldness wins the smile of beauty. It was possible that the possession of this quality on the part of Pedro Archilete had influenced the heart of the fair Gabriella. This might ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... so far the enormous moral difficulty there is in bringing people who have been prosperous and at an advantage all their lives to the pitch of even contemplating a social reorganisation that may minimise or destroy their precedence. We have all to think, to think hard and think generously, and there is not a man in England to-day, even though his hands are busy at work, whose brain may not be helping in this great task of social rearrangement ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... impossible to secure clear specimens for all of the above tests, tests will have precedence in the order in ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... mustn't we, dear?" he said to his wife. He assured his young friend that the matter should have his very best attention; and he melted into space as elusively as if, at the door, he were taking an inevitable but deprecatory precedence. When, the next moment, Pemberton found himself alone with Mrs. Moreen it was to hear her say "I see, I see"—stroking the roundness of her chin and looking as if she were only hesitating between a dozen easy remedies. If they didn't make their push Mr. Moreen could at least ...
— The Pupil • Henry James

... he left the now world-famous farm and the bulk of his property. Jane, of precocious talents, seems to have been, almost from infancy, the tyrant of the house at Haddington, where her people took a place of precedence in the small county town. Her grandfathers, John of Penfillan and Walter of Templand, also a Welsh, though of another—the gipsy—stock, vied for her baby favours, while her mother's quick and shifty tempers seem at that date to have combined in the process of "spoiling" her. The records of the ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... 1675-1680 is neither brief nor edifying. The root of it all lay in the governor's western policy, his encouragement of the forest traders or coureurs-de-bois, and his connivance at the use of brandy in the Indian trade. There were unseemly squabbles about precedence at council meetings and at religious festivals, about trivialities of every sort; but the question of the brandy trade was at the bottom of them all. The bishop flayed the governor for letting this trade go on; the missionaries declared that it was proving ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro

... ourselves, and on the urgency of their spiritual needs. By this doctrine, among those outside of the Church, those professing Christianity have the first claim to our apostleship. Therefore missions to non-Catholics, caeteris paribus, take precedence over foreign missions. ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... uncertainty regarding whose neck should feel the rope and whose back the scourge. While all were willing to admit that more than a dozen of us sorely needed hanging, yet each man seemed loath to claim precedence over his neighbour in wickedness, and desired, in some sort, a voice in the selection of the victims. But if you will accept our following, Master Wilhelm, we will repair at once to Frankfort and make submission to his Majesty the Emperor. The remnant being well scourged, will then return to Schonburg ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... with in this dispatch the role of the other armies holding our defensive line from the northern limits of the battle front to beyond Ypres was necessarily a secondary one, but their task was neither light nor unimportant. While required to give precedence in all respects to the needs of the Somme battle, they were responsible for the security of the line held by them and for keeping the enemy on their front constantly on the alert. Their role was a very trying one, entailing heavy work on the troops and constant vigilance on the part of commanders ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... perfection of physical existence; let my mind be furnished with highest thoughts of soul-life. Let me be in myself myself fully. The pageantry of power, the still more foolish pageantry of wealth, the senseless precedence of place; words fail me to express my utter contempt for such pleasure or such ambitions. Let me be in myself myself fully, and those I love ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... that there were not many houses in Poland that surpassed theirs in magnificence. In introducing to the reader the various ornaments and appendages of the magnate's court, I shall mention first, giving precedence to the fair sex, that there lived under the supervision of a French governess six young ladies of noble families. The noblemen attached to the lord of the castle were divided into three classes. In the first class were to ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... 20, 1866. He was already a well-known poet, novelist, and critic when he took up his residence in the United States. In each of these fields Mr. Le Gallienne has achieved conspicuous success and it would be difficult to say what phase of his literary work should take precedence of the others. Among the best known of his prose works are: "The Quest of the Golden Girl", "Book Bills of Narcissus", "An Old Country House", "Little Dinners with the Sphinx", etc. In criticism he has done particularly fine work in his study of George Meredith and in his ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... Sumner Howden, I could look down upon the mistress of Raynham Castle," she thought. "As Countess of Vandeluce, I should take precedence of ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... well hold to the maxim seniores priores, and will therefore begin with Dr. Routh, the centenarian President of Magdalen, as, though, the headship of a house seems to be an excellent prescription for longevity, there was no one to dispute the venerable doctor's claim to precedence in this respect. He was then nearly a hundred years old, and he died in his hundredth year, and obtained his wish to have the C, anno centesimo, on his gravestone, for, though tired of life, he often ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... army, as has been related, was drawn up in two lines; Lord George commanded the first, which was composed of the Atholl brigade. This regiment was placed by Lord George on the right of the line: unfortunately, the Clan Macdonald, proud and fiery, claimed the precedence. They grounded their assertion of right to the usage of time immemorial; and to their having had it during the two previous battles. Lord George, on the other hand, uncompromising as usual, insisted that in those actions even, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... precedence in this matter, but thou wilt do well to remember that I possess especial means to push his interests;—means that thou canst not ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... (and its correlative three-dimensional space), with weight and texture we have therefore got from the contemplated shape to a thought alien to that shape and its contemplation. The thought, to which life and its needs and dangers has given precedence over every other: What Thing is behind this shape, what qualities must be inferred from this aspect? After the possibility of occupying so much space, the most important quality which things can have ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee

... allured by those croissants and images of gold which he brought with him to trade, as also by the ancient fame and magnificence of El Dorado; whereupon Vides sent into Spain for a patent to discover and conquer Guiana, not knowing of the precedence of Berreo's patent; which, as Berreo affirmeth, was signed before that of Vidas. So as when Vides understood of Berreo and that he had made entrance into that territory, and foregone his desire and hope, it was verily thought that Vides practised with Morequito to hinder and disturb ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh

... the days of the apostles and the conversion of Constantine, the Christian commonwealth changed its aspect. The Bishop of Rome—a personage unknown to the writers of the New Testament— meanwhile rose into prominence, and at length took precedence of all other churchmen. Rites and ceremonies, of which neither Paul nor Peter ever heard, crept silently into use, and then claimed the rank of divine institutions. Officers, for whom the primitive disciples could have found no place, and titles, which to them ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen



Words linked to "Precedency" :   precession, posteriority, activity, precedent, earliness, precede, back burner, priority, high status, anteriority, front burner, antecedency, precedence



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