PRECEDENT • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Precedent

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/prˈɛsɪdənt/ Listen

noun

Precedent n.

Something done or said that may serve as an example to authorize a subsequent act of the same kind; an authoritative example. "Examples for cases can but direct as precedents only."

A preceding circumstance or condition; an antecedent; hence, a prognostic; a token; a sign. (Obs.)

A rough draught of a writing which precedes a finished copy. (Obs.)

(Law) A judicial decision which serves as a rule for future determinations in similar or analogous cases; an authority to be followed in courts of justice; forms of proceeding to be followed in similar cases.

Synonyms: Example; antecedent. Precedent, Example. An example in a similar case which may serve as a rule or guide, but has no authority out of itself. A precedent is something which comes down to us from the past with the sanction of usage and of common consent. We quote examples in literature, and precedents in law.

adjective

Precedent adj. Going before; anterior; preceding; antecedent; as, precedent services. "A precedent injury."

Condition precedent (Law), a condition which precede the vesting of an estate, or the accruing of a right.

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Etymology of 'Precedent'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Precedent" Quotes from Famous Books

... and Crescent of Mohammed. The architecture shows a free interpretation of early Roman forms. It is, in fact, a purely romantic conception by Architect Maybeck, entirely free from traditional worship or obedience to scholastic precedent. Its greatest charm has been established through successful composition; the architectural elements have been arranged into a colossal theme of exceptional harmony, into which the interwoven planting and the mirror lake have been incorporated in a masterly way. ...

— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt

... and US systems that combine "continental" or "civil" code and case-precedent; constitution ambiguous on judicial review of legislative acts; has not accepted compulsory ...

— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... might develop a hot war similar to the anti-Hitler coalition of the 1930's. If that precedent is followed, however, the defeat of the United States would be followed by a period of fragmentation similar to or even more intense than the fragmentation of the ...

— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... would be reprehended while they are looked on. And this vice, one that is authority with the rest, loving, delivers over to them to be imitated; so that ofttimes the faults which be fell into the others seek for. This is the danger, when vice becomes a precedent. ...

— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... Bladud himself, in honour of whose happiness a whole people were, at that very moment, straining alike their throats and purse-strings. The truth was, that the prince, forgetting the undoubted right of the minister for foreign affairs to fall in love on his behalf, had, contrary to every precedent of policy and diplomacy, already fallen in love on his own account, and privately contracted himself unto the fair daughter of ...

— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

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