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Precedent   /prˈɛsɪdənt/   Listen
Precedent

adjective
1.
Preceding in time, order, or significance.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Precedent" Quotes from Famous Books



... mahogany and rose jars, with her black silk skirts spreading about her, and an Old Blue cup in her hand, and talk family,—how cousin this married a man whose people aren't anybody, and cousin that is outraging precedent by naming her child for her husband's side of the house. She's a funny, dear old lady! You know, Miss Paget," the professor went on, with his eager, impersonal air, "when I met you, I thought you didn't quite seem like a New Yorker and a Bar Harborer—if that's the word! Aunt Pam—you ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris

... in the expansive power of God. I hate with a deep-seated hatred all such attempts to bind and confine the rising tide of thought. I want to see religion vital and not formal, elastic and not cramped by precedent and tradition. And thus I love to see worship enshrined in noble classical buildings, which seem to me to speak of a desire to infuse the intellectual spirit of Greece, the dignified imperialism of Rome into ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the Virginia Resolutions of State sovereignty; for they notoriously disregarded the paramount supremacy of the Constitution. The conscientious doubt of others as to making the exclusion of slavery a condition precedent to admission into the Union, proves not the incorrectness of this position, but strengthens it, by showing that only a controlling love of the Union caused the doubt, which originated in a policy that would not even seem to do ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... system under which he is brought up, rendered cruel, merciless, and deceitful. There may be, and probably are, hardships inflicted by some of the landlords; but they are produced in most instances by criminal and precedent acts on the part of the people. In no country in the world are the rights of property so ill understood or so recklessly violated: the industrious man fears to surround his cottage with a garden, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... many respects admirable, indeed without any precedent, we are bound to believe. The artists, great and little, had toiled for months to attain perfection. Most of the orchestra, headed by Wilhelmj, had slaved without payment that there might be no deficiencies in their ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... nose. He looked at one over the collar, so to speak. His regard was very assured, and his speech was that short bundle of monosyllables which the subaltern throws at the orderly. He had never been questioned, and, the precedent being absent, he had never questioned himself. Why should he? We live by question and answer, but we do not know the reply to anything until a puzzled comrade bothers us and initiates that divine curiosity which both humbles and ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... jurisdiction. At once he put into exercise the advantages and opportunities which were united in him so as never before in the promoter of a like enterprise, and achieved a success speedy and splendid beyond all precedent. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... for a higher understanding of Nature's method and accomplishment as a precedent to study and observation of our national parks, I seek enormously to enrich the enjoyment not only of these supreme examples but of all examples of world making. The same readings which will prepare you to enjoy to the full the message ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... his safety exasperated Betty beyond measure. She scolded him vigorously. Charley accepted the scolding with humility, but his resolution was unshaken; he did not propose to vacate the public roads at any man's behest; that would be an unwise precedent to establish. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... so useful nowadays as it had been in the past, and modern languages were gaining an importance which they had not had in his own youth. His own mind was divided, for a younger brother of his had been sent to Germany when he failed in some examination, thus creating a precedent but since he had there died of typhoid it was impossible to look upon the experiment as other than dangerous. The result of innumerable conversations was that Philip should go back to Tercanbury for another term, and then should leave. With this ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... to very vigorous action of a repressing, even of a punitive, description. It was not, in itself, a complicated situation, and no Governor, who was soldier too, need have hesitated for an instant. The various Stations, indeed, anticipating the usual course of action indicated by precedent, had automatically gone to their posts, prepared for the "official instructions" it was known that I should send, wondering impatiently (as I learned afterwards) at the slight delay. For delay there was, though of a few hours only; and this delay was caused by my uncomfortable new habit—pausing ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood

... decorated Market Square, including the Godbury School O.T.C. and the Wellingsford and Godbury Volunteers. I heard that the latter were very anxious to fire off a feu de joie, but were restrained owing to lack of precedent. The local fire-brigade in freshly burnished helmets were to follow the procession of motor cars, and behind them motor omnibuses with ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... with suspicion and disfavour. He is the type of them that prove in defiance of precept that the safest path is not always midway, and that the golden rule is sometimes unspeakably worthless: who set what seems a horrible example, create an apparently shameful precedent, and yet contrive to approve themselves an honour to their country and the race. To be a good Briton a man must trade profitably, marry respectably, live cleanly, avoid excess, revere the established order, and wear his heart in his breeches ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... make and frame of Turner's mind being not vulgar, but as nearly as possible a combination of the minds of Keats and Dante, joining capricious waywardness, and intense openness to every fine pleasure of sense, and hot defiance of formal precedent, with a quite infinite tenderness, generosity, and desire of justice and truth—this kind of mind did not become vulgar, but very tolerant of vulgarity, even fond of it in some forms; and on the outside, visibly infected by it, deeply enough; the curious ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... Constant's Memoirs, "used to say that a good man was to be known by the way he treated his wife, his children, and his servants. He added that immorality was the most dangerous vice a sovereign could have, because it established a precedent for his subjects. What he meant by immorality, was giving scandalous publicity to relations which should have been kept secret; these relations he was by no means disposed to refuse when they presented themselves before him." The faithful valet de chambre goes on in an attempt to defend his master: ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... class his orchids, he had ungraciously replied that he couldn't have a lot of school girls running over his place—if he let them come one year, he would have to let them come another, and he didn't wish to establish a precedent. ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... in a house which looked backwards into the garden of Leicester House. Newton lived in St. Martin's-street, on the south side of the square. Steele lived in Bury-street, St. James'; he furnishes an illustrious precedent for the loungers in St. James'-street, where scandal-mongers of those times delighted to detect Isaac Bickerstaff in the person of captain Steele, idling before the Coffee-house, and jerking his leg and stick alternately against the pavement. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various

... little short of 2,000,000 of quarters. And what was the result? The exportation of 6,000,000 of sovereigns in a single year to buy grain; an unexampled pressure on the money market; commercial embarrassments, long-continued, and severe beyond all former precedent; the contraction of ten millions of additional debt in four years, and the creation of a deficit which at length rose to the formidable amount, in 1842, of L.4,000,000 sterling! And what first dispelled this distress, and arrested this downward and disastrous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... small yells. We found, upon inquiry, that there was no ball, dinner, or other public demonstration; the reason was ascribed to the extreme violence of party politics, which at this period completely divided the community, and were carried out to an extent without precedent ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... princes, the king was warranted by all laws, divine and human, in laying under contribution every one of his subjects, of whatever rank or condition.[277] But, as the same ends might be attained by methods more agreeable to law and precedent, Francis preferred to have ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... respect for the refinements of speech or for literary polish. He could not endure Mr. Sumner's piling precedent upon precedent and quotation upon quotation, and disliked his lofty and somewhat pompous rhetoric. He used sometimes to leave his seat and make known his disgust in the cloak room, or in the rear of the desks, to visitors who happened to be in the Senate Chamber. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... 756 in orig.], on November 23, there happened an exceedingly interesting event which stands, I think, without a precedent in the annals of science—an eclipse of the Moon contemporaneous with an occultation of a planet by the Moon. This singular combination is thus described in the annals of Roger de Hoveden[129]:—"On the ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers

... year; but my grapes, that used to be forward and good, are at present backward beyond all precedent; and this is not the worst of the story; for the same ungenial weather, the same black cold solstice, has injured the more necessary fruits of the earth, and discoloured and blighted our wheat. The crop of hops promises ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... were abed. He set forth in haste, accompanied by two squires riding on one horse, a page and a few varlets running with torches. As he rode, he hummed to himself and trifled with his glove. And so riding, he was beset by the bravoes of his enemy and slain. My lord of Burgundy set an ill precedent in this deed, as he found some years after on the bridge of Montereau; and even in the meantime he did not profit quietly by his rival's death. The horror of the other princes seems to have perturbed himself; he avowed his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... have been built, requiring the active use of capital to operate them. Millions of acres of land have been opened to cultivation, requiring capital to move the products. Manufactories have multiplied beyond all precedent in the same period of time, requiring capital weekly for the payment of wages and for the purchase of material; and probably the largest of all comparative contraction arises from the organizing of free labor in the South. Now every laborer there receives ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant

... on the way. The station is a stone building, strong enough almost for a fort. Military uniforms adorn every employee, from the supercilious station-master to the ill-paid wretch that handles our baggage. Mine is the first bicycle the Tiflis & Baku Railroad has ever carried. Having no precedent to govern themselves by, and, withal, ever eager to fleece and overcharge, the railway officials charge double rates for it; that is, twice as much as an ordinary package of the same weight. No baggage is carried free on the Tiflis & Baku Railroad except ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... place for luck; we do not mean that conscious attention and forethought shall have been bestowed upon the minutest details of action, and nothing been left to work itself out departmentally according to precedent, or as it otherwise best may according ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... invasion of our privileges may be easily supposed to have impaired. We shall give our sovereign an opportunity, by a gracious condescension to our desires, to recover those affections of which the pernicious advice of flatterers has deprived him; we shall obviate a precedent which threatens destruction to our liberties, and shall set the nation free from an universal alarm. Nor in our present state is it to be mentioned as a trifling consideration, that we shall hinder the wealth of the nation from being ravished ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... other countries drew their supplies. All the products of the world found purchasers here, and a well-developed banking system greatly facilitated the exchange. The rapid accumulation of fortunes by the Dutch merchants and bankers was without precedent in Europe. Besides this, the progress which Holland made in ship-building and navigation and the advantages which she derived from her colonial trade placed her in a position to outstrip all other nations in the carrying ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... was perfectly comprehensible to him, but it was difficult for him to conceive of anybody indulging in it simply as a matter of sentiment. That April afternoon was so far away now that it had ceased to exist even as an historical precedent. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... the battle were about equal, no less than 9000 having fallen upon each side—a proportion without precedent in any battle of modern times, and testifying to the obstinacy and valour with which on both sides the struggle was maintained from early morning until night ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... military dictatorship, which also had failed, to be replaced by the restored monarchy. And, last of all, eventual success had come from a bargain or compromise between the upper and middle class on the one hand and the King on the other. This was the historic precedent best known and generally uppermost in the minds of the men ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... feudal rights, and there was no reason which the state would consider valid why they should not be enforced in all fiefs alike. The case of the Bishop of Durham, in 1088, had already established a precedent for the forfeiture of an ecclesiastical barony for the treason of its holder, and in that case the king had granted fiefs within that barony to his own vassals. Still more clearly would such a fief return to the king's hands, if it were ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... once settled as a clergyman and president of the college at Hiram, Portage County. He here became very popular as an eloquent divine, as a lecturer before lyceums, and as a profound scholar. The success of his school was without a precedent. Two years ago he was elected, by an immense majority, as a member of the State Senate. At the first call for troops, he at once entered the field, and rallied round him some of the ablest boys to be ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... received as a recognition of his powers the titles of Prince of the Great Precious Law and Buddha of the Western Paradise.[693] His three principal disciples were styled Kuo Shih, and, agreeably to the precedent established under the Yuan dynasty, were made the chief prelates of the whole Buddhist Church. Since this time the Red or Tibetan Clergy have been recognized as having precedence ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... having in your minds the notable charges that the company have defrayed in advancing this voyage; and the great charges that they sustain daily in wages, victuals, and other things, all which must be requited by the wise handling of this voyage, which, being the first precedent shall be a perpetual precedent for ever; and therefore all circumspection is to be used; and foreseeing in this first enterprise, which God bless and prosper under you to His glory and the public ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt

... throne. His father was evidently a difficult person to live with; not only his extravagance and erratic habits, but also a thoroughly unjustified suspicion of his elder son, must have caused the latter a great deal of misery. Instead of following the precedent of the P[vr]emysls in dynastic disputes, Charles wisely abstained from open opposition to John, although the people's affection had been transferred from father to son. Added to this there were the usual troubles caused by the German ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... be; there is no power in Venice Can alter a decree established: 'Twill be recorded for a precedent; And many an error, by the same example, Will rush into the state; ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare

... contrary to precedent," urged the Fairy. "You ought to express unbounded delight, and then depart in your carriage with the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various

... action of the European governments was born of nothing more humane than a war expediency in order that more soldiers might be bred, yet the effect of such a course will benefit the human race. It has at least set a precedent, and will in time be extended to all children born out of wedlock and will wipe out forever the cruel and unjust stigma that has attached to the child of unmarried parents. Thus it will be seen that even war has its good results, and although it seems a terrible price to ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... you too well, to look for meanness in you. If from pure goodwill, John Ridd, and anxiety to relieve you, I made no condition precedent, you are not the man to take advantage, as a lawyer might. I do not even want your promise. As sure as I hold this glass, and drink your health and love in another drop (forced on me by pathetic words), so surely will you ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... herewith submitted is accepted, it would, I think, result in some cases, where there are large families of minor children, in excessive allotments to a single family. Whatever is done in this case will of course become in some sense a precedent in the cases ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... and mine too, depended on the eccentricities of a jury, the chartered libertinism of an ermined judge, the humour of the law, on a series of points without precedent concerning which no monograph had as yet been written; and, as a last desperate resource, on the letters of a sympathetic British public in the penny papers. The penny papers, the criminal's latest broadsheet anchor! Under the exasperating circumstances, Philippa remained as ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)

... Tho[mon]d(66) and Will: all [the] party is so broke up at present that they are au desespoir. The Bedfords are in extraordinary good humour; that elevation of spirit does them no more credit than their precedent abasement; the equus animus seems a stranger to them. G. Greenv.(67) is certainly [befouled] as a Minister, but he is so well manured in other respects that he cannot be an object ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... no other country than Cuba, where the Captain-General does not always act in accordance with law. Distinguished lawyers and judges of that city, in conversation with the Herald correspondent, denounced the act as being utterly illegal and without precedent." ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... time for discussion on questions of precedent, so we began to climb together, reaching a great branch about twenty feet from the ground, no easy task for me, encumbered as I was ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... for Fort Union in New Mexico, left Fort Leavenworth for the long and dangerous journey of more than seven hundred miles over the great plains, which that season were infested by Indians to a degree almost without precedent in the annals ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... his head, knowing now what Erickson was driving at. "Well, I may as well be frank. I'm—I committed suicide. That's how drunk I was. There hasn't been a suicide in the Miller family in centuries. It took a skinful of liquor to set the precedent." ...
— The Day Time Stopped Moving • Bradner Buckner

... proclamation there is one paragraph, of which I do not remember any precedent. He threatens, that, if any peasant should be found with arms, he shall be hanged without further inquiry; and that, if any lord shall connive at his vassals keeping arms in their custody, his village ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... a husband and also a lover is not entirely without precedent," said Disraeli in mock apology, and took snuff solemnly. Meantime manuscripts were traveling back and forth between the East India House and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... in the Castle itself, a house in the cloisters being thought more suitable, and here the Queen visited her child daily, for since that last alarm she could not bear to be long absent from him. Such emissaries as Colonel Sands did not again appear, but after that precedent Lady Strickland had become much more unwilling to allow any of those under her authority to go out into any public place, and the rockers seldom got any exercise except as swelling the Prince's train when he was carried ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... some disaffected persons, Peacham was interrogated, and after he had declined to give any information, was subjected to torture. Bacon, as one of the learned counsel, was ordered by the council to take part in this examination, which was undoubtedly warranted by precedent, whatever may now be thought of it. Nothing, however, was extracted from Peacham in this way, and it was resolved to proceed against him for treason. Now, in the excited state of popular feeling at that period, the failure of government to substantiate an ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... and cannot pin its faith on insecure deductions. The heaviest burden which religion can have to bear is the burden of tradition, and humour is the determined foe of everything that is conventional and traditional. The Pharisaical spirit loves precedent and authority; the humorous spirit loves all that is swift and shifting and subversive and fresh. One of the reasons why the orthodox heaven is so depressing a place is that there seems to be no room in it for laughter; it is ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... leisure for any other measure: but the jealousy of liberty was now roused, and the nation regarded these pretended benevolences as real extortions, contrary to law, and dangerous to freedom, however authorized by ancient precedent. A parliament was found to be the only resource which could furnish any large supplies; and writs were accordingly issued for summoning that great ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... and the badge of his superiority, self-importance. The captain and lieutenants exercised slight control over the men in the ranks, who conceived that the offices had gone to the wrong men. The Wood County militia regarded itself as an "army of occupation," by law and precedent warranted in abusing a brief authority. Instead of guarding and protecting property not their own, the men showed their patriotic zeal by mutilating or demolishing the results of Blennerhassett's labor. They took malicious pleasure in wantonly defacing ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... "The precedent once established, all must perish by its edict—even those which may not be grotesque or bestial—even this perfect one," and he touched again the vat, "and thus you would rid yourself of rival suitors. But no!" he went on in a high, trembling voice. "I shall not be led to thus compromise myself, ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... our readers informed as to the progress of this enterprise, which has no precedent in ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... days which are adjusted to the needs of the family and suited to its surroundings, because built honestly with due regard to the necessities, and even if, as Ruskin says, their detail is abominable and there is no precedent, no right nor reason in the square drip moulding over the windows, yet we love them as a whole, and cannot help feeling that they expressed truly the story they were intended to tell. But we do not feel the same instinctive attraction in the Palladian mansions of Jones, however accurately ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 01, No. 12, December 1895 - English Country Houses • Various

... conchology, especially if it had several brilliant colors, one would take off his coat, another his shirt, and insist that he should exchange the shell for the garment. When he declined the exchange, but on the contrary presented the coveted article, he soon found he had established a dangerous precedent. Immediately they all commenced to beg for everything in the vast collection which they happened to take a liking to. This cost Barnum many valuable specimens, and often "put him to his trumps" for an excuse ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... before brought to such a test. Unquestionably a main source of Webster's strength and success lay in this democratic instinct; it was not patriotism alone, it was the spirit which hailed the new democracy, and in its very contempt of precedent and historic authority ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... literary vanity, as because I fear it is better fitted to injure than to serve the sacred cause of freedom. I have directed my solicitor to apply to Chancery for an injunction to restrain the sale; but, after the precedent of Mr. Southey's "Wat Tyler" (a poem written, I believe, at the same age, and with the same unreflecting enthusiasm), ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley

... great battle, and thus executed the command laid upon him,—"the certain capture of the city of New Orleans." The victory was accomplished with the loss of but one ship, and 184 men killed and wounded,—"a feat in naval warfare," says his son and biographer, "which has no precedent, and which is still without a parallel, except the one furnished by Farragut himself, ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden

... But, the tale runs, the Governor looked——He certainly did establish a precedent at that dinner. Mockers say that Judge Pat McCarran ran a close second, because his Excellency is lean and lank, while Judge McCarran would make two of him one way, and almost half of him the other, and because what happened ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... Sand we name something more exceptional than even a great genius. Her rise to eminence in the literature of her century, is, if not without a parallel, yet absolutely without a precedent, in the annals of ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... for doubting the wonderful recovery of Mesknan, whose real name was Mapkla, nor do I see any improbability in the report that he fell suddenly under the influence of a spirit, for such an occurrence is not without precedent in Manboland. I will admit even that at the beginning belief in the revival was sincere, but as time went on and the reputation of the power of Mesknan's spirit became greater, abuses crept in, so that shortly ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... said to have admitted some Mohammedans as members of his sect. The precedent has not been followed among most branches of his later adherents but a curious half-secret sect, found throughout Bengal in considerable numbers and called Kartabhajas,[648] appears to represent an eccentric ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... kneeling to make a hasty examination. "Hope I haven't done for him.... It would be the first time.... Bad precedent!... So! He's all right—conscious within an hour.... Too soon!" he added, standing and looking down. "Well, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... other forms suddenly created will not act, but rapidly retrograde to the old form. Moreover, such regulations as a despot makes, if really operative, are so because of their fitness to the social state. His acts being very much swayed by general opinion—by precedent, by the feeling of his nobles, his priesthood, his army—are in part immediate results of the national character; and when they are out of harmony with the national character, they are soon practically abrogated. The failure of Cromwell permanently to establish a new social condition, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... Jim, "and some of them have been expensive ones in lives and money. Many of our engineering problems are entirely new and we have to solve them without precedent. The punishment for a bad guess in engineering is always sure and hard. One can make a bad political ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... should, however, on the other hand, have anticipated, that in proportion to the strength of character required for the effort, and to the absence of distracting sentiments, whether respect for precedent, or affection for ideal beauty, would be the energy exhibited in the pursuit of the special objects which the youths proposed to themselves, and ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... of the attack on M. CLEMENCEAU reaching the Commons there was a general desire that the House should pass a resolution of sympathy. But Mr. BONAR LAW deprecated the proposal as being, in his opinion, "against all precedent"—not a little to the surprise of some of the new Members, who thought that in a case like this the conseil du precedent might bow to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various

... who reigned for a short time (217-218), but perished in consequence of his attempts to reform the discipline of the army. Heliogabalus (218-222) was not more cruel than others had been, but his gross and shameless debauchery was without a precedent. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... secede, concede, intercede, procedure, precedent, succeed, exceed, success, recess, concession, procession, intercession, abscess, ancestor, cease, decease; (2) ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... the Government and often on its most important measures. Those who might wish to defeat a measure proposed might construe the power relied on in support of it in a narrow and contracted manner, and in that way fix a precedent inconsistent with the true import of the grant. At other times those who favored a measure might give to the power relied on a forced or strained construction, and, succeeding in the object, fix a precedent in the opposite extreme. Thus it is manifest that if the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson

... here to accuse me or to ask me questions? If to accuse me, prove your charges yourself; if to ask questions, do not anticipate the truth by expressing opinions on that concerning which your ignorance compels you to inquire. If this precedent be followed, if there is no necessity for the accuser to prove anything, but on the contrary he is given every facility for asking questions of the accused, there is not a man in all the world but will be indicted on some charge or other. In fact, everything that he has ever done ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... virtues, that it is apt to determine a man's sudden adhesion to an opinion, whether on a personal or impersonal matter, without leaving him time to consider his grounds. The adhesion is sudden and momentary, but it either forms a precedent for his line of thought and action, or it is presently seen to have been inconsistent with his true mind. This determination of partisanship by temper has its worst effects in the career of the public man, who is always in danger of getting so enthralled by his own words that he looks into facts ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... under the most trying circumstances, accommodated herself to his wishes. He then reflected upon the fact of her maid having accompanied her, and concluded, very naturally, that if she had resolved to elope with this hateful stranger, she would have done so in pursuance of the precedent set by most young ladies who take such steps—that is, unaccompanied by any one but her lover. From this view of the case he gathered comfort, and was beginning to feel his mind somewhat more at ease, when a servant ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... of the marriage of Prithwi Raj, king of Delhi, that the bride's father emptied his coffers in gifts, but he filled them with the praises of mankind. A lakh of rupees [291] was given to the chief bard, and this became a precedent for similar occasions. "Until vanity suffers itself to be controlled," Colonel Tod wrote, [292] "and the aristocratic Rajputs submit to republican simplicity, the evils arising from nuptial profusion will not cease. Unfortunately ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... Their Councils were held along the southern shores of Lake Ontario, and upon the Niagara River, before the first adventurers, the Dutch, and French Jesuits appeared in the valley of the Mohawk; and there are evidences of a long precedent existence that corresponds with ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah

... all bodies enter into account upon divers considerations, (which I have mentioned in the precedent chapter;) these considerations being diversly named, divers absurdities proceed from the confusion, and unfit connexion of their ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... Pleased, though I scarce know why, like some young child, Whose little senses each new toy turns wild, 40 How do I hold sweet dalliance with my crown, And wanton with dominion, how lay down, Without the sanction of a precedent, Rules of most large and absolute extent; Rules, which from sense of public virtue spring, And all at once commence a Patriot King! But, for the day of trial is at hand, And the whole fortunes of a mighty land Are staked on me, and all their weal ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... kindly slept for three nights on the parlour sofa, in order that Mrs. Baines might have his room. The funeral grew into an obsession, for multitudinous things had to be performed and done sumptuously and in strict accordance with precedent. There were the family mourning, the funeral repast, the choice of the text on the memorial card, the composition of the legend on the coffin, the legal arrangements, the letters to relations, the selection of guests, and the questions of bell-ringing, hearse, plumes, number of horses, and grave-digging. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... for which above all others Mr. Mill's disciples will love his memory is his essay "On Liberty." In this undertaking Mr. Mill followed the noble precedent of Locke, with greater largeness of view and perfection of work. Locke's four letters "Concerning Toleration" constitute a splendid manifesto of the Liberals of the seventeenth century. The principle, that the ends of political society are ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other

... bellies, on make the voice seem to come from some other part of the room than that where they are. But these Ventriloqui speak very distinctly and intelligibly. The only thing, then, that I can find like a precedent for your way of speaking (and I would willingly help you to one if I could) is the modern art 'de persifler', practiced with great success by the 'Petits maitres' at Paris. This noble art consists in picking out ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... monsieur le consultant ne passe les nuits bien calmes, il prendra chaque soir a l'heure de sommeil six grains des pilules de cynoglosse, dent il augmentera la dose d'un grain de plus toutes les fois que la dose du jour precedent, n'aura pas ete suffisante pour lui faire ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... meaning or application designed for the act—in that case nothing has been done. But this is not so: Government is bound henceforwards by its own act. That proclamation as to one meeting establishes a precedent as to all. It is not within the power of Government, having done that act of suppression, and still more having spoken that language of proclamation, now to retreat from their own rule, and to apply any other rule to any subsequent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... remaining with me. You remember you wanted to print it in the Cornhill, and I was obstinate: there is hardly any occasion on which I should be otherwise, if the printing any poem of mine in a magazine were purely for my own sake: so, any liberality you exercise will not be drawn into a precedent against you. I fancy this is a case in which one may handsomely puff one's own ware, and I venture to call my verses good for once. I send them to you directly, because expedition will render whatever I contribute more valuable: for when you make up your mind as to how liberally I shall ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... surprised and indignant at his recalcitrancy, raised a rebellion, but were defeated with great slaughter, and thus by his spirited conduct the king freed himself from the tyranny of his councillors and established a new precedent for the guidance of his successors. However, the old custom seems to have revived and persisted until late in the nineteenth century, for a Catholic missionary, writing in 1884, speaks of the practice as if ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... wonder for a few days at the strange haste, but my answer shall be that I am going to the front with my troops. The son and many of the high officials of the Kaiser have already established the precedent, marrying hurriedly upon the eve of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... August morning when Paw died. This was an unexpected and unsettling contingency. One doesn't look for a "chronic's" doing anything so unscheduled and foreign to routine; but Paw spoiled all precedent. They found him that morning with his heart quite still, and Luke knew they stood in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... not be established. But the time came that they have forsook it themselves. For a while after the Iroquoits came there, the number of seaven hundred, on the snow in the beginning of Spring, where they make a cruell slaughter as the precedent years, where some ghostly fathers or brothers or their servants weare consumed, taken or burnt, as their relation ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... heartless starvation would be too sweeping an assertion to make. There always have been men who strove to act generously towards the people serving in their vessels, though these, I am persuaded, were in the minority, and it is to the credit of that minority that they had to struggle against precedent, example, and it may be the habitual conviction that it was part of the sailor's business to take whatever food was put aboard for him. Running short of provisions was to them only an incident natural to the sailor's ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... everything broke up into units. Later, I was told by my official friend that the King's last movement—the oath as he sank to his knees—was an innovation of his own. All I can say is, if, in the future, and for all time, it is not taken for a precedent, and made an important part of the Patriotic Coronation ceremony, the Blue Mountaineers will prove themselves to be a much more stupid people than they ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... income was then scarcely more than L500, while the salaries and fixed charges amounted annually to L730. The Board accused the Governors of having made "wasteful and extravagant expenditures without precedent or principle," some of which did not appear to have any connection with the opening or the carrying on of McGill; many of these, they said, were wholly unnecessary, and had never been authorised by the Board, whose consent had not ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... lightly. It was "that fella along a mountain," who caused the trouble, or else "another boy alonga Hinchinbrook!" Having thus completely and satisfactorily settled the point, his face assumed a slow, wise smile, and his agitated mind rested. Was it not all another palpable proof, a precedent to be cited, of the manner in which a no-good-boy wantonly brought about ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... A little before his death, the chief priest of Eleusis, following the Socratic precedent, entered an indictment against him for impiety. This indictment was supported by citations of certain heretical doctrines from his published writings; on which Grote makes the significant remark, that his ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... in the Junior class, only to have a snap meeting called on us over in Browning Hall, in which three middle-aged young ladies who had never danced a step were named. The roar we raised was terrific, but the president sweetly informed us that they had only followed precedent—we'd had to do the same thing the year before to keep out the Mu Kow Moos. We appealed to the Faculty, and it laughed at us. Unfortunately, we didn't stand any too well there anyway, while most of the Blanks were the ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... religion with the celestials, to subvert which requires great caution, persistency and strength. If anything can be justified by old custom, or even precedent, it is considered to be unassailable, no matter how harmful or irrational ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... as to this lonely prairie wilderness, and the red man its child. In a hazy way came the question whether after all it were not foolhardy to remain here now, to dare that invisible, intangible something before which, almost in panic, the others had fled. To be sure, precedent was with him, logic; but—of a sudden—but a minute had passed—his arms tightened; involuntarily he held his breath. Hans Mueller had been moving on and on; another half minute and he would have been behind the base of the hill out of sight; when, as from ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... as preserved by Sandford, and in which the precedent of Charles II.'s coronation was followed, we find both these ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... evident enjoyment, was not wholly encouraging. It seemed darkly possible that she had cited a precedent applicable to every case where she was haled before a court. The chairs in Mrs. Owen's office were decidedly uncomfortable; Bassett crossed and recrossed his legs, and pressed his hand nervously to his pocket to make sure of his check-book; ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... instance of unwarrantable intervention. Kobo-Dogarque believes that this decision was afterward reversed by an appellate court of contrary political complexion and the companies were compelled to compromise, but of this there is no record. It is certain that in the San Francisco case the precedent was urged. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... military science and precedent, he drew from them principles and suggestions, and so adapted them to novel conditions that his campaigns will continue to be the profitable study of the military profession throughout the world. His genial nature made him comrade to every soldier of the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... the most far-reaching in importance of all those with which this government has to deal. The history of the world offers no precedent for our guidance, since no such peaceful invasion of alien peoples has ever before occurred. It must have great and largely unforeseen effects upon our form of civilization, our social and political institutions, and, ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose

... for which Richelieu is most generally condemned. But the state of anarchy which he removed was license, not liberty. The task of reconciling private independence with public peace, civil rights with the existence of justice,—and this without precedent or tradition, without that rooted stock on which freedom, in order to grow and bear fruit, must be grafted,—was a conception which, however familiar to our age, was utterly unknown, and impracticable to that of Richelieu. With the horrors of civil war fresh in the memory of all, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various

... genius burnt that shock of hair away Which, elsewise, clogs one's keenness and activity of mind; And (barring present company, of course) I'm free to say That, after all, it's intellect that captures womankind. At any rate, since then (With a precedent in Ben), The women-folk have been in love with us ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... of that which was already established by moral proof. Leeds, now at ease as to the event of the impeachment, gave himself the airs of an injured man. "My Lords," he said, "the conduct of the Commons is without precedent. They impeach me of a high crime; they promise to prove it; then they find that they have not the means of proving it; and they revile me for not supplying them with the means. Surely they ought not to have brought a charge like this, without well considering whether they had or had not ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... down living trees, a person should publish his sin and fast for three nights. By having intercourse with one with whom intercourse is prohibited, the expiation for one is wandering in wet clothes and sleeping on a bed of ashes. These, O king, are the expiations for sinful acts, according to precedent and reason and scriptures and the ordinances. A Brahmana may be cleansed of all sins by reciting the Gayatri in a sacred place, all the while living upon frugal fare, casting off malice, abandoning wrath ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... suppose that there is a sick person whom an- other would heal mentally. The healer begins by mental [5] argument. He mentally says, "You are well, and you know it;" and he supports this silent mental force by audible explanation, attestation, and precedent. His mental and oral arguments aim to refute the sick man's thoughts, words, and actions, in certain directions, and [10] turn them into channels of Truth. He persists in this course until the patient's mind yields, and the harmonious thought has the full control over ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... it if I hadn't been there last night myself," said Bailey. "There was a pretty hot discussion. Some of us want to help you, but the majority want a precedent back of them. And there's no precedent for a woman-mayor, you know. Say, Gertie, are you fully determined to run?—because the Augean stables aren't exactly what you've been accustomed to,—and ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow

... you have been uniformly successful with the cases he's put you on. I hope," the young father entreated, "that you'll follow your usual precedent." ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina

... expressed it. And having taken measures for publishing their declaration to the world, the convention closed their proceedings by appointing a committee, selected as combining the most happily an acquaintance with form and precedent with a knowledge of the ways and wants of the people, to draft a constitution to be submitted to a new convention, which the people were invited to call for that purpose. In response to that call, a new convention assembled ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... very firmly, bent upon saving the meeting from any possibility of scandalising itself and the Wesleyan community. Bishop Colenso must not be approved beneath those roofs. Evidently Edwin had been more persuasive than he dreamt of; and daring beyond precedent. He had meant to carry his resolution if he could, whereas, it appeared, he ought to have meant to be defeated, in the true interests of revealed religion. The chairman kept referring to his young friend the proposer's ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... henceforth he must live by it or else begin life over again in another sphere. At all events, for a term of years, his personal prosperity depends upon the use he can make of his hold upon the public goods. He is not individually to be blamed, perhaps, for he follows a precedent as widely recognized as it is universally pernicious. It is the system that is to be blamed, the general belief that a man can, and justly may, support himself by clinging to a set of principles of which he does ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... over again? Whereas, one reason for our so vigorously opposing Mr. Wood's coinage, is, because we have always been imposed upon in our copper money, and we find he is treading exactly in the steps of his predecessors, and thinks he has a right to cheat us because he can shew a precedent for it.' In truth, there was a vast number of counterfeits of those coins, which had been imported, chiefly from Scotland, as appears from a proclamation prohibiting the Importation of them in 1697" ("History St. Patrick's Cathedral," ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... manner. If they wanted a porch over the door, or a bay window at a certain corner, or a turret to enjoy some favorite view—they made them, put them just where they were needed. Convenience was everything, and precedent nothing. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... completion of the "big fence" unfortunately set a bad precedent. Major Bach, flushed with the success of his first speeding-up tactics, grew more and more inexorable in this connection. For every job a rigid time-limit was now set, and he did not hesitate to ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... so content, Or sick with false conceit of right, As not to know that the element And inmost warmth of love's delight Is honour? Who'd not rather kiss A duchess than a milkmaid, prank The two in equal grace, which is Precedent Nature's obvious rank? Much rather, then, a woman deck'd With saintly honours, chaste and good, Whose thoughts celestial things affect, Whose eyes express her heavenly mood! Those lesser vaunts are dimm'd or lost Which ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore

... the point! Just as our brother's Seventeen Council Fires Unite for self-protection so do we. How can you blame us, since your own example Is but our model and fair precedent? The Long-Knife's craft has kept our tribes apart, Nourished dissensions, raised distinctions up, Forced us to injuries which, soon as done, Are made your vile pretexts for bloody war. But this ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair

... vast herds and the problems they brought. It concerned the destinies of those who followed fast in the footsteps of the trailmakers and sought to establish a business where there was neither law nor precedent. Sordid days, these. The honest men were not yet organized; the dishonest and criminal were unrestrained by laws. Cattle and kine were taken furtively or openly to these very hills and vales where ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... the way grew wings, or if the deep sea rose and washed out the chaos of the land. I should not raise my eyebrows if the daily press became the Little Sunbeam of the Home, or if Cabinet Ministers struck for a decrease of wages. I feel no security in facts, precedent seems no protection to me. The wisdom you can find in an Encyclopedia, or in Selfridge's Information Bureau, seems to me just a ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... for more innocent kinds of food was equally excessive. He would eat seven or eight peaches before breakfast, and declared that he had only once in his life had as much wall-fruit as he wished. His consumption of tea was prodigious, beyond all precedent. Hawkins quotes Bishop Burnet as having drunk sixteen large cups every morning, a feat which would entitle him to be reckoned as a rival. "A hardened and shameless tea-drinker," Johnson called himself, who "with tea amuses the ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... could be prevented from being introduced by way of New Orleans, by persons who are not citizens of the United States." It was moved to strike out the excepting clause; but the motion received only twelve votes,—an apparent indication that Congress either did not appreciate the great precedent it was establishing, or was reprehensibly careless. Harper of South Carolina then succeeded in building up the Charleston slave-trade interest by a section forbidding the slave traffic from "without the limits of the United ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... During its course, the thermometer did not get below 90 deg. What it reached in the daytime it boots not to record—and signifies less, because when the sun is above us, we bargain for a hot day in summer. But oh! those nights, when by every precedent we should have had cooling dews, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... creature symbolizes some of our human arts and initiations. Once organized by genius and consecrated by precedent, they become mighty elements in history, revelling amid the wealthy energy of life, exhausting the forces of the intellect, clipping the tendrils of affection, becoming colossal in the architecture of society and dorsal in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... oligarchical government of the Hanoverian period, just as that system had been a step from the kingly power of the Tudors and the Stuarts, which, in turn, had arisen upon the ruins of feudalism and military monarchical power. It is this gradual growth, this "gently broadening down from precedent to precedent," which makes the British constitution of to-day the more or less perfected result of centuries of experience and struggle. But that result has only been made possible by a peculiar series of national adjustments in which the power of the Monarchs ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... to begin when I was unlacing your boots, but the idea struck me that to propose holding a lady's foot instead of her hand, would be too ludicrous a variation from all precedent. What a sensitive girl you are, Cecil! I am sure you knew what was coming, for I felt you drawing into a shell of consciousness, that would have made me nervous too, if I had ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... doctor said. He was a little ashamed of his weakness in the matter, knew it was a bad precedent, didn't wish to hear any more about it. "Haven't you got something warmer to put on?" he asked. "You're not going out into this pouring rain in that ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... the present tale, though it would have been far more convenient not to have spread the story over such a length of time, and to have made the catastrophe depend upon the heroes and heroines, instead of keeping them mere ineffective spectators, or only engaged in imaginary adventures for which a precedent can be found, it has been necessary to stretch out their narrative, so as to be at least consistent with the real history, at the entire sacrifice of the plot. And it may be feared that thus the story may partake ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... About Woman, and my belief in the favourable influence of mother-descent on the status of women, has been much questioned. I have been told that I "had quite deliberately gone back to our uncivilised ancestors to 'fish up' the precedent of the matriarchate;" that I "had allowed my prejudices to dictate my choice of material, and had thus brought forward examples explanatory of my own opinions;" that I "had fastened eagerly on these, without inquiring too carefully about other facts having ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... consider "the state of polite learning" among us, "You mustn't expect people to keep it up here as they do in England." But it appeared that his countrymen were only wanting the chance, and they kept it up in honor of him past all precedent. One does not go into a catalogue of dinners, receptions, meetings, speeches, and the like, when there are more vital things to speak of. He loved these obvious joys, and he eagerly strove with the occasions they gave him for the brilliancy which seemed ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... to appear before the Senate and receive the acknowledgment of the Serenissimo, who had already been informed by the Councillors that while the spontaneous offer of a galley so maintained had no precedent in the annals of Venice, the reward which the Senate proposed to bestow had, in fact, in early historic days been offered by the Republic as a stimulus to ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... that at a hunting seat they were roasting some game for Nushirowan, and as there was no salt they were despatching a servant to the village to fetch some. Nushirowan called to him, saying, "Take it at its fair price, and not by force, lest a bad precedent be established and the village desolated." They asked, "What damage can ensue from this trifle?" He answered, "Originally, the basis of oppression in this world was small, and every newcomer added to it, till it reached to its present extent:—Let the monarch eat but one apple from a peasant's orchard, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... resumed the young man, 'my governor, who's the head of the firm, is all for doing things according to precedent. He loves red tape—wears it wrapped round him in winter instead of flannel. He's all for doing things in the proper legal way, which, as I dare say you know, takes months. And, meanwhile, everybody's wondering what's ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse



Words linked to "Precedent" :   preceding, subject, illustration, civil law, representative, precedency, theme, example, service, jurisprudence, instance, law, topic, precedence, precede



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