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Precedent   /prˈɛsɪdənt/   Listen
Precedent

noun
1.
An example that is used to justify similar occurrences at a later time.  Synonym: case in point.
2.
(civil law) a law established by following earlier judicial decisions.  Synonyms: case law, common law.
3.
A system of jurisprudence based on judicial precedents rather than statutory laws.  Synonyms: case law, common law.
4.
A subject mentioned earlier (preceding in time).






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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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

... the Author has here endeavoured to execute has not, so far as he knows, the advantage of any near precedent in any literature, he hopes that a few explanatory words may be offered ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... so often heard the Marchioness de Fleury quoted as a precedent, and her taste cited as the most perfect in Paris, that I suppose she is a very ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... the interesting phase of precedent in energy release. Early success, unless it brings too high a self-valuation, which is its great danger, is remarkably valuable in releasing energy, and failure establishes a precedent that may bring doubt, fear and the attendant inhibition of energy. Of course, failure may bring ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... not treason. It would be treason to the cause to let me live. I failed. I let the secret out. I must die. That is the law. If they let me live, the next one who failed would quote the precedent, and within a century or so a new law of compromise would have crept in. Our secrets would be all out, and the world would use our knowledge to destroy itself. No. They show their mercy by making use of me, instead of merely throwing my dead carcass ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... formal renunciation of all right of succession to any part of her mother's dominions which might at any time devolve on her; though the number of her brothers and elder sisters rendered any such occurrence in the highest degree improbable, and though one conspicuous precedent in the history of both countries had, within the memory of persons still living, proved the worthlessness of such renunciations.[1] A few days were then devoted to appropriate festivities. That which ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... Irish army, obeying an Irish Executive and commanded by Irish officers, would be none the less formidable because it might in name be identified with an armed police, or, like the troops raised at the Cape or in Victoria, enjoy the ominous title of Volunteers. If the Colonial precedent were strictly carried out, British troops ought, from the time Ireland obtained an independent Parliament, to be withdrawn from the country. The acknowledged danger of foreign invasion, and the unavowed probability of Irish insurrection, would make the retirement of the English army impossible. ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... the worldly interests of the child would also be materially injured by the removal. Above all, the revealing of the child's locale would be a violation of a 'professional obligation,' and would be initiating a very dangerous precedent in matters of this kind; and so Mrs.——'s lips were sealed, and to this day the real mother knows naught of her own child; would not even be able to recognize her offspring, if they were to meet face to face in the streets ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... republicanism and racialism, in all parts of the world. The French Revolution opened a new era for nationalism, both directly and indirectly. The deposition of the Bourbons was a national act which might be a precedent for other oppressed peoples. And when the Revolution itself began to trample on the rights of other nations, an uprising took place, first in Spain and then in Prussia, which proved too strong for the tyrant. The apostasy of France from her own ideals ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... fellow-feeling. If it were so, she had got to a common plane of understanding with him on some difficulties of life which a woman is rarely able to judge of with any justice or generosity; for, according to precedent, Gwendolen's view of her position might easily have been no other than that her husband's marriage with her was his entrance on the path of virtue, while Mrs. Glasher represented his forsaken sin. And Deronda had ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... by no means improbable, however, that these hydrocarbons are, at least in part, products of the action of the sulphuric acid. Cahours and Kraemer's and Godzki's observations on the higher fractions of crude wood spirit, in fact, furnish a precedent for this view. Referring to the results obtained by Anderson, Tilden, and Renard, the author suggests that rosin spirit perhaps contains hydrides intermediate in composition between those of the CnH{2n-6} and CnH{2n} ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... hall-mark of hoary antiquity, so much the better. I entertain a reverence for precedent. And honestly, as common sense goes, I am not ashamed of that of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... commanded the respect of the people. Hemingway, the chief justice, was peculiarly a man for a crisis; strong, honest, and entirely fearless; a man who would not stop to haggle over nice questions of precedent and jurisdiction where the public welfare demanded prompt and ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... Macrinus, 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

... of the unwillingness of the authorities to encourage the search for gold, and it is after all due to the fact that the search was ultimately successful beyond all precedent, that Australia has been for so many years relieved of the curse of convictism, and has ceased once and for all to be a depot for the scoundrelism of Britain—"Hurrah for ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... you come under the muzzle of the ordinance; you're a loafer.' One of these ''fishal functionaries' justifies extreme physical means in 'captivating obstropolous vagroms' both by reason and distinguished precedent: 'Wolloping is the only way; it's a panacea for differences of opinion. You'll find it in history books, that one nation teaches another what it didn't know before by wolloping it; that's the method of civilizing savages; the Romans put the whole world to rights ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... of Washington deserves particular notice, inasmuch as in its chief outlines it has served for the precedent to all succeeding inaugurations. Congress had determined that the ceremony of taking the oath of office should be performed in public and in the open air. It took place on the 30th of April, 1789. In the morning religious services were performed in all the churches of the city. At 12 ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... 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 over the Grey ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... inconvenience may be easily avoided by choosing a wider and longer course, which may be again enlarged and varied by going one way, and returning another. This is not without a precedent; for, not to inquire into the practice of remoter princes, the procession of Charles the second's coronation issued from the Tower, and passed through the whole length ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... established an excellent precedent for every other city and town in the Union. A few days ago the manager of a popular theatre there was fined $100 for advertising a spectacular exhibition by setting up indecent posters. It is high time ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... one) for this neglect is the curious fact, in itself adding to their interest, that these chansons, though a very important chapter in the histories both of poetry and of fiction, form one which is strangely marked off at both ends from all connection, save in point of subject, with literature precedent or subsequent. As to their own origin, the usual abundant, warm, and if it may be said without impertinence, rather futile controversies have prevailed. Practically speaking, we know nothing whatever about the matter. There used to be a theory that ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... out of jail, would he have difficulties over my being his candidate. He replied that I am very young, and after many circumlocutions he said flatly that he doesn't know if I would be accepted or not as a candidate by his followers; but in case I were, the conditions precedent would be: first, that I would not interfere in any way in the affairs of the district, which would be ventilated in the town, as previously; secondly, that I should bear the costs of the election, which would amount approximately ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... of his regiment? I hear, too, that to make the gift still sweeter, 55 The Duke has given him the very same In which he first saw service, and since then, Worked himself, step by step, through each preferment, From the ranks upwards. And verily, it gives A precedent of hope, a spur of action 60 To the whole corps, if once in their remembrance An old deserving ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... 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

... demands that our public schools shall not, by clinging to precedent and convention, fall notably behind industry and government in appropriating the fruits of modern scientific research. As the doctor varies the diet to the needs of each patient and each affliction, so must the school serve the intellectual and social needs of the pupils by such an organization ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien

... of international law has been brought up by the cutting of the cables by Admiral Dewey; it is claimed that by doing this he has established an international precedent, for his cutting of the cable connecting a country at war with another country is a forcible interference with communication which has not been practised in ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 23, June 9, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... the press, and will be ready for delivery to the Members by the end of the present month. The Council have followed the precedent of former years, in directing that there should be appended to the last-mentioned volume a list of the Members of the Society for the past year; and, if the General Meeting think proper, this Report and that of the Auditors ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee

... virtue of which, in cases determined by himself, he provided in a discretionary way for all Catholic interests, of which he thus becomes the supreme judge, the sole interpreter and the court of last appeal. An indestructible precedent was set up; it was the great corner-stone in the support of the modern Church edifice; on this definitive foundation all other stones were to be superposed, one by one. In 1801, Pius VII., under the pressure of the reigning ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... to the letter k. The Maya sign for k is . This does not look much like our letter K; but let us examine it. Following the precedent established for us by the Mayas in the case of the letter m, let us see what is the distinguishing feature here; it is clearly the figure of a serpent standing erect, with its tail doubled around its middle, forming a circle. It has already been remarked by Savolini ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... Upon the analogy of any possible precedent, under which Rome could be said to have taken seven centuries in unfolding her power, our Britain has taken almost fourteen. So long is the space between the first germination of Anglo-Saxon institutions ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... said Jock, "wasn't it in Hungarie that the beggar of low degree married the king's daughter? There's precedent ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... record of any case of disciplining heretofore," she said, troubled. "There is no precedent by which ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... the ranchers immediately around Bonneville who would be plundered by this move on the part of the Railroad. The "alternate section" system applied throughout all the San Joaquin. By striking at the Bonneville ranchers a terrible precedent was established. Of the crowd of guests in the harness room alone, nearly every man was affected, every man menaced with ruin. All of a ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... an absolute majority 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 pride ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... begin laughing about it. A man never ought to have to write such letters twice in his life. If he has, why, he may get a good enough precedent for the second out of ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... of the Church, that the assertion will not be denied that the restrictions as to contracting matrimonial alliances did not extend to clerks not in holy orders or below the grade of subdiaconus. The Registrum Brevium furnishes a precedent of a writ, "De clerico infra sacros ordines constituto non eligendo in officium." This distinction alone would prove that other clerks were not ineligible to office. The various decrees of the Church may be cited to show that the prohibition to marry did not ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.22 • Various

... person; and the cloudy indignation with which she entered at first, again overspread her features. Ought wrath, Dr. Bartlett, to be so ready to attend a female will?—Surely, thought I, my lady's present airs, after what has passed between her and me, can be only owing to the fear of making a precedent, and being ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... Irish Bulls is said to have found its way into a catalogue of works upon natural history; with which precedent in my favour, and pending the inquiries of naturalists, ratcatchers, and farmers into the history of the above-named formidable invader, I hope MR. HIBBERD will have no objection to my intruding a bibliographical curiosity under the convenient ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various

... 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

... think that your eminence would do that. It is a grand enterprise, and almost without precedent in point both of daring and in the great advantages to ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... Sandeau then went on to explain to me how the theatrical newspapers, which contain the lists of performers and of pieces in all the theatres of Paris, (play-bills being unknown,) enter into a contract, which is the condition precedent of their sale in the theatres, stipulating that they will never speak otherwise than in praise of the pieces brought out. The report of the new piece is often written and set up before the performance ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... could procure that; his rank relatively to others was finally fixed. The practical difficulty of getting at a captain of conspicuous ability, to make of him a flag-officer, was met by one of those clumsy yet adequate expedients by which the practical English mind contrives to reconcile respect for precedent with the demands of emergency. There being then no legal limit to the number of admirals, a promotion was in such case made of all captains down to and including the one wanted; and Lord St. Vincent, one of the most thorough-going of naval statesmen, is credited with the declaration ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... function more honourable, more sacred, or more beneficial. An upright judge, with his own passions and prejudices subdued, attentive to the principles of justice by which alone the happiness of the world can be promoted, and by the rectitude of his decisions affording precedent and example to future generations, he considered as a character that must command the reverence and love ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... the testimony of the Past, and the witness of the Dead is this. Thus it has arisen, this ideal, the ideal of Britain as distinct from the ideal of Rome, of Islam, or of Persia—thus it has arisen, this Empire, unexampled in present and without a precedent in former times; for Athens under Pericles was but a masked despotism, and the republic-empire of Islam passed swifter than a dream. Thus it has arisen, this Imperial Britain, from the dark Unconscious emerging ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... hoped that the Peers would not endorse such methods, but would be guided by the example of "Clemency" CANNING. The Lords however, by 129 to 86, passed Lord FINLAY'S motion, to the effect that General DYER had been unjustly treated and that a dangerous precedent had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various

... the tomb of Khuithotpu at Saqqara; the Great Sphinx of Gizeh; a short inscription on the rocks of the Wady Maghara, which represents Zosiri (the same king of whom the priests of Khnumu in the Greek period made a precedent) working the turquoise or copper mines of Sinai; and finally the Step-Pyramid where this same ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... making head against the flood. The next instant he could have pitched himself upon the floor and bellowed. For, a soul of chicken and wine, lightly elated, is easily dashed; and if he had but said to Lord Suckling that, it might as well be deferred, the thing would have become a precedent, and his own debt might have been held back. He went on saying, as he rushed forward alone: "Never mind, Suckling. Oh, hang it! put it in your pocket;" and the imperative necessity for talking, and fancying what was adverse ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Mr. Hinxman, perfectly satisfied with the result of my journey of three days to serve my friend. Mr. Hinxman sent his address to London, as proposed; but the parties applied to immediately put a negative on the proposition, assigning as a reason, that it would be establishing a very bad precedent, to raise a subscription amongst the Reformers to pay the debts of a man who had deserted the cause of the people, by flying from the country at a moment of peril and difficulty; and thus at once was a stop put to the laudable intentions of Mr. Hinxman. There was, indeed, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... Lords and Masters in our happy land, How with this woman will you make account, How answer her shrill question in that hour When whirlwinds of such women shake the polls, Heedless of every precedent and creed, Straight in hysteric haste to right all wrongs? How will it be with cant of politics, With king of trade and legislative boss, With cobwebs of hypocrisy and greed, When she shall take the ballot for her broom And sweep away the ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... was diplomatically and tactfully, yet 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 brilliant brains, and to the grave ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... Bragg, "My troops can break the lines, if you care to have them broken." What sublime confidence did Lee's old commander of the First Corps have in the powers of his faithful troops! But General Bragg, it seems, against all military rules or precedent, and in violation of the first principles of army ethics, had already sent orders to Longstreet's subalterns, directly and not through the Lieutenant General's headquarters, as it should have been done, to commence the attack. General Stewart, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... around. He also issued some stringent regulations, affecting the privileges and liberties of persons residing outside the town's barriers. These good people were thenceforward obliged to submit to the indignity of being searched, as a condition precedent to permission to come or go like ordinary mortals. The right to read their newspaper across the breakfast cup was also denied them; the duty had to be performed In town, lest the wind should blow the local journal into the hands of the enemy and ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... book argument, Which glibly glides from every tongue; When any dare a new light to present, "If you are right, then everybody's wrong"! Suppose the converse of this precedent So often urged, so loudly and so long; "If you are wrong, then everybody's right"! Was ever ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... even joyously, of the thousand and one little matters that supplied their daily lives with interest, and nothing must have been further from their thoughts than what actually occurred. The bank that had sent them had departed from all precedent in parcelling out the gold amongst the messengers. It was certainly against the rather strict regulations of the bank, but the man who had instructed them had that contempt for rules and regulations which is the mark of a man destined ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... old chap," said Shepler. "I had occasion not long since to tell him that a certain business plan he proposed was entirely without precedent. His answer was characteristic. He said, 'We make precedents in the West when we can't find one to suit us.' It seemed so typical of the people to me. You never can tell what they may do. You see they were started out of old ruts by some form of necessity, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... supremacy on the sea and who had already subjugated one great Asiatic empire. But it may at least be said that he did nothing to make the ultimate solution of the question more difficult, and his flattering reception of Lord Macartney's embassy was an important and encouraging a precedent ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... punished in consequence. Fitzjames gives the actual facts to show how Reade had allowed himself, as a writer of fiction, to exaggerate and distort them, and had at the same time taken the airs of an historian of facts and bragged of his resolution to brand all judges who should dare to follow the precedent which he denounced. This article, I may notice, included an injudicious reference to the case of the Post Office and Rowland Hill, which was not, I believe, due to Fitzjames himself, and which enabled Dickens to reply with some effect in 'Household Words.' Dickens's ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... of the unjustifiable largess to the demands of the Count de Grasse, I will certainly not propose to rivet it by a second example on behalf of M. de Chastellux's son. It will only be done in the event of such a repetition of the precedent, as will give every one a right to share in the plunder. It is, indeed, surprising you have not yet received the British treaty in form. I presume you would never receive it were not your cooperation on it necessary. But this will oblige the formal ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... was, however, sufficient to prevent the storm from breaking while he was President. It was reserved for his successor. In 1797 his second term expired. He had refused a third, thereby setting an important precedent which every subsequent President has followed, and bade farewell to politics in an address which is among the great historical documents of the Republic. The two points especially emphasized were long the acknowledged keynotes of American policy: the avoidance at home ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... Lorenzius Medici, and Ludovicus Sforza, potentates, the one of Florence, the other of Milan. Neither is the opinion of some of the Schoolmen, to be received, that a war cannot justly be made, but upon a precedent injury or provocation. For there is no question, but a just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... to this boat; but what time had intervened, or where I was, I knew no better than the dead. Only this was sure, that I was in the hands of one of the greatest scoundrels living, and that, if his past were any precedent, my hours of life would ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... contained authentic copies of documents which were most important in explaining the policy pursued at different periods of the negotiations; the House of Commons, however, possessed not a tittle of information on the subject. This course was according to precedent, because the negotiations were pending; but it was equally in conformity with precedent that, under these circumstances, the House ought not to be called upon to pledge itself to the payment of the ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... example, in the grim intensity of her political method, in her maritime and commercial ascendancy. But she repeated no previous state at all in the lax disorder of her internal administration, a laxity that made vast sections of her area lawless beyond precedent, so that it was possible for whole districts to be impassable, while civil war raged between street and street, and for Alsatias to exist in her midst in which the official police never set foot. She was an ethnic whirlpool. The flags of all ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... upon the proposition that achievement is the sole test of capacity or, in other words, that achievement must necessarily follow capacity, and this is a proposition by no means free from doubt. It is plain that a desire to achieve is a condition precedent to achievement but it is equally plain that there may well be ability without ambition. The question why civilisation has not followed apparent capacity may with equal propriety be asked about races whose mental ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen

... "Yet he was kind", etc. For the rhyme of 'fault' and 'aught' in this couplet Prior cites the precedent ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... border of the web, so that its upper portion was only a confused array of irregular lines, which it was impossible to secure to the frame. For any accurate observation my web was of no value. But perhaps this was best; for had I then learned what I have since, that our spider utterly ignores every precedent, not only in the position and shape of her web, but also in its minute arrangement, I might have been so affected by her evident bad character and radical proclivities, as to have feared paying her any further attentions,—much more, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... as to whether the rat should go in or not. Harris said that he thought it would be all right, mixed up with the other things, and that every little helped; but George stood up for precedent. He said he had never heard of water-rats in Irish stew, and he would rather be on the safe side, and ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... happiness he has not yet found in freedom, our fathers left their sons a saving and excellent heritage. In the storm of war this institution was lost. I thank God as heartily as you do that human slavery is gone forever from American soil. But the freedman remains. With him, a problem without precedent or parallel. Note its appalling conditions. Two utterly dissimilar races on the same soil—with equal political and civil rights—almost equal in numbers, but terribly unequal in intelligence and responsibility—each pledged against ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... great Rajput bard, sang 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 ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... cause of their exhaustion, he found that they had been worked entirely in perpendicular shafts instead of following the direction of the veins. He perfected a plan for working them in this simple and reasonable way, and no earthly power could make the Spanish miners obey his orders. There was no precedent for this new process, and they would not touch it. They preferred starvation rather than offend the memory of their fathers by a change. At last they had to be dismissed and a full force imported from Germany, under whose hands the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... the rebellion McClellan was simply a captain, but was regarded as one of the most able and accomplished officers of the army. His promotion was rapid beyond precedent; but his head was turned by his elevation, and he became arrogant and opinionated, and before long even insulted the President, and assumed the airs of a national liberator on whose shoulders was laid the burden of the war. He consequently ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these examples for the most part among the ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... as in Cyprus, where I think, the Mahomedans vote by themselves. They have nine votes and the non-Mahomedans have three, or the other way about. So in Bohemia, where the Germans vote alone and have their own register. Therefore we are not without a precedent and a parallel, for the idea of a separate register. Secondly, they want a number of seats somewhat in excess of their numerical strength. Those two demands we are quite ready and intend to meet in full. There is a third demand that, if there is a Hindu on the Viceroy's Executive ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)

... temper, which is supposed to be compatible with shining 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 ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... those which closed the sixteenth century. But Spenser remained un-imitated and Shakspeare was inimitable; the drama, however, which in this as in the last generation monopolized the best minds, received new developments, poetry was enriched beyond precedent, and prose writing blossomed into a harvest of unexampled eloquence. But although, under the rule of James, learning did good service in theology and the classics, English writing began to be infected with pedantic affectations. The chivalrous temper of the preceding ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... out, and of the greatest value to the scientific world, and every one who had made that memorable voyage on the Dipscy had stories to tell for which editors in every civilized land would have paid gold beyond all former precedent. ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton

... at him with eagle-like intentness and a puzzled frown. His face said plainly that Kenny's mood was without precedent and therefore strategical. It behooved him to get to the bottom of it at once ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... of the Church. A Hebrew Old Testament, in 1546, was followed in 1550 by the Greek New Testament. The next year he published a new edition of the Testament in which for the first time it was divided into verses, a precedent followed in Bible printing ever since. It was not merely the fact of his printing the scriptures at all that angered the heresy-hunters, but much more Estienne's notes and comments, in which, like Luther in Germany and ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater

... the whole, the bill is dangerous in itself, as being the first step towards the total invasion of the company's territories in Bengal; and should we admit the motives which lead to it to be good, yet such a step is dangerous as a precedent. I do not, however, deny that the house has power to pass it, but you have not the right. There is a perpetual confusion in gentlemen's ideas from inattention to this material distinction, from which, properly considered, it will ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Niagara, but Perry was here detached from the lake service, and returned to the seaboard, leaving Elliott to command on Erie. In acknowledging the order for Perry's removal, Chauncey regretted the granting of his application as a bad precedent; and further took occasion to remark that when he himself was sent to the lakes the only vessel on them owned by the United States was the brig "Oneida." "Since then two fleets have been created, one of ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... this intelligence was any thing but satisfactory; I could not help conjuring up visions of a long and wearisome captivity—of hope deferred and expectations disappointed—with Stoddart's melancholy situation as a near precedent. I managed to make myself for a short time as thoroughly uncomfortable as if I were already a prisoner, but soon a sense of the great foolishness of indulging in this tone of thought came over me, and making a strong effort ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... BUT NOT A PRECEDENT.—It is a gracious act on the part of a Cabman, when, at a dinner-party, he gives the pas to an Omnibus-driver, at the same time courteously explaining this waiver of rights by saying that "at the present moment he is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various

... Punic cause was a counsel and a precedent. Hopes of deliverance revived. Populations hitherto uncertain hesitated no longer. Everywhere there was a stir. The Suffet learnt this, and he had no assistance to look for! He was now ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... against all precedent to burn One who recants; they mean to pardon me. To give the poor—they give the poor who die. Well, burn me or not burn me I am fixt; It is but a communion, not a mass: A holy supper, not a sacrifice; No man can make his ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... the flash in her eyes, and he smiled. "Your Royal Highness, my lords, ladies and gentlemen," said he, while all the company were racking their brains to recall a precedent for such proceedings at a more than formal London dinner party; "the Princess and myself thank you from our hearts. For me this might almost seem the end of the fairy-tale of my life, in which—when I was eleven ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... this country naturally sympathized with England, and the Jeffersonian Democracy with France. The Federalists, who distrusted the sweeping abstractions of the French Revolution, and clung to the conservative notions of a checked and balanced freedom, inherited from English precedent, were accused of monarchical and aristocratic leanings. On their side they were not slow to accuse their adversaries of French atheism and French Jacobinism. By a singular reversal of the natural order of things the strength of the Federalist ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... war, and would be satisfied with any concessions he would recommend. That the politicians had had their say, now let the soldiers terminate the strife which politicians had begun. That Napoleon while in Italy, against all precedent and without the knowledge of the civil department, had entered into negotiations with the enemy, made peace, and while distasteful to the authorities, they were too polite to refuse the terms. But General Lee was too much a soldier to consider ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... business without precedent, and all growing beyond human thought. To meet the issues as they arise the men at the head must ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... is a thing that grows on one," continued Mr. Tredgold, with the air of making a concession. "It is the first smoke that does the mischief; it is a fatal precedent. Unless, perhaps—How pretty that field is ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... morning last the quiet little village of Cardiff, which lies in the valley about twelve miles south of Syracuse, was thrown into an excitement without precedent, by the report that a human body had been exhumed in a petrified state, the colossal dimensions of which had never been the fortune of the inhabitants of the little village to behold, and the magnitude of which ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.

... recollections may perhaps go back as far as the Restoration, will be surprised at the size of the frame required for the picture we are about to bring before him, embracing as it does two centuries and a half; but as everything, has its precedent, every river its source, every volcano its central fire, so it is that the spot of earth on which we are going to fix our eyes has been the scene of action and reaction, revenge and retaliation, till the religious annals of the South resemble an account-book ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first? The question admits but of three answers, viz. either by lot, by election, or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot, yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction there was any intention it ever should be. If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine

... On the way he crossed the tracks of two other deer, but they had no temptations for him. He wanted to solve the mystery of that spreading hoof-print, and to make sure that his shot had not been a clean miss. And now began a day which was without precedent in the Buck's whole history. Those woods are not the best in the world for a deer who has to play hide-and-seek with a man, for there are few bare ridges or half-wooded slopes from which he can look back to see if anyone ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert

... the vegetative apparatus, with our muscles, especially the involuntary, with our viscera, and particularly with our internal secretions. Whenever there is thought and feeling, there is movement, commotion, precedent and concomitant, among these. They are the oldest seats of feeling, thought and will and continue ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... note ascendeth a little higher than the precedent. For as the proficience of learning consisteth much in the orders and institutions of universities in the same states and kingdoms, so it would be yet more advanced, if there were more intelligence mutual between the universities of ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... time in a small village in Bruce County, Province of Ontario, Dominion of Canada, there lived a man who was destined to establish a precedent. He was to prove to the world that a rolling stone is capable at times of gathering as much moss as a stationary one, and how it is possible for the rock with St. Vitus dance to become more coated than the one that is confined to perpetual isolation. Like ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)

... 'silence,' he would be more careful after this. I think he has been chastened enough. If I could find any reason whatever for refusing to vote for the end of the Coventry, it would come from the question as to whether any one class has the right to upset the traditions and establish a new precedent for ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock

... shrinkage of their income was a remarkable phenomenon, without explanation or precedent—that it could happen at all within the space of five years seemed almost an intended cruelty, conceived and executed by a sardonic God. When they were married seventy-five hundred a year had seemed ample for a young ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... Westminster Hall. When Lord Campbell argued the great Privilege case, he obtained permission to appear without a wig; but this concession to a counsel—who, on that occasion, spoke for sixteen hours—was accompanied with an intimation that "it was not to be drawn into precedent." ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... domiciliary catastrophe the author of "Margaret Mayfield" has formed a melodrama, which in every other respect is founded, like a chancellor's decree, upon precedent; it being a good old-fashioned, cut-throat piece, of the leather-breeches-and-gaiter, plough-and-pitchfork school. A country-inn parlour of course commences the story, where certain characters assemble, who reveal enough of themselves and of the characters assumed by their fellows (at that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various

... "according to all fiction precedent, the rest of us ought to get together immediately, if not a little sooner, and murder ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... and merits of Christ; this is that for the sake of which grace is given unto us, as is intimated by the text, Rev. 22:1. It proceeds from the throne of God, who is Christ. Christ then having obtained grace for us, must needs be precedent as to his merit, to that grace he hath so obtained. Besides, it is clear that the Spirit and grace come from God through him. Therefore, as to the communication of grace to us, it is the fruit of ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... precedent to show that an action of this sort will lie, without proof of malice in the defendants, or that the act of disfranchisement was done on purpose to deprive the plaintiff of the particular advantage which resulted to him from his corporate character? ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous

... 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

... Proudie sitting on the old bishop's chair, looking very nice in his new apron; they found, too, Mr. Slope standing on the hearth-rug, persuasive and eager, just as the archdeacon used to stand; but on the sofa they also found Mrs. Proudie, an innovation for which a precedent might in vain be sought in all the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... last age of the world (or likely neuer) the time is compleat of receiuing also these Gentiles into his mercy, and that God will raise him an instrument to effect the same: it seeming probable by euent or precedent attempts made by the Spanyards and French sundry times, that the countreys lying North of Florida, God hath reserued the same to be reduced vnto Christian ciuility by the English nation. For not long after that ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... who wore it more than three thousand years ago. The gold coins with the head of Alexander the Great are some of them so fresh one might think they were newer than much of the silver currency we were lately handling. As we have been quoting from the poets this morning, I will follow the precedent, and give some lines from an epistle of Pope to Addison after the latter had written, but not yet published, his Dialogue on Medals. Some of these lines have been lingering in my memory for a great many years, but I looked at the original the other day and was so pleased with them that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... since learned that this quarter of the mansion consists of a labyrinth of rooms, shut up because devoid of interest, and containing only some old lumber. To have conducted us through them would have been to disobey orders, and, worse still, establish a precedent, from which the child might well shrink. It would have doubled her arduous round of duty. It was policy, no less than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... one. unir (s'), to unite. univers, m., universe, the whole universe. usage, m., use, custom, precedent. usure, f., usury, usurious interest; payer avec —, ...
— Esther • Jean Racine

... and law-abiding persons such a proceeding appeared to be no better than judicial murder, constituting a hideous precedent; a committee was formed to present a formal indictment against Governor Eyre and obtain a judicial pronouncement on the question, quite apart from the two other questions persistently confused with it—namely, was Gordon a Jamaica Hampden or ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley

... fate, 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 ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)

... him, and being a man who already saw what large consequences sometimes flow from small causes he must have been buoyed up by the thought that any of the cases which came before him might set a very important precedent. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... comment. "Lover" is not generally applied by bards to adored members of the gentler sex, "love" being the conventional term. Likewise, the phrase "heart which always softly does its beating" might well be revised with greater attention to poetical precedent. Yet the whole is of really promising quality, and exhibits a metrical correctness much above the average. "The Operation" is a very witty sketch by Miss Clara I. Stalker, with a sudden turn toward the end which arouses the complete ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... copied.] Prototype. — N. prototype, original, model, pattern, precedent, standard, ideal, reference, scantling, type; archetype, antitype[obs3]; protoplast, module, exemplar, example, ensample[obs3], paradigm; lay-figure. text, copy, design; fugleman[obs3], keynote. die, mold; matrix, last, plasm[obs3]; proplasm[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... extraordinary honours. This, indeed, may be justly inferred from the speeches which he made upon both those occasions; as when he says, "I shall ever be the same, and shall never change my conduct, so long as I retain my senses; but to avoid giving a bad precedent to posterity, the senate ought to beware of binding themselves to the acts of (234) any person whatever, who might by some accident or other be induced to alter them." And again: "If ye should at any time entertain a jealousy of my conduct, and ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... rights as well as honorary degrees. He is the author of A Creative Tension—The Foreign Policy Roles of the President and Congress (2002) and How Congress Works and Why You Should Care (2004), and the coauthor of Without Precedent: The Inside Story ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace

... proper equipment, but nearly all his men were handy on a ship as well as on land. In Louisbourg were about two thousand defenders, of whom only five or six hundred were French regulars. These professional soldiers watched with contempt not untouched with apprehension the breaches of military precedent in the operations of the besiegers. Men harnessed like horses dragged guns through morasses into position, exposed themselves recklessly, and showed the skill, initiative, and resolution which we have now come to consider the dominant qualities of the Yankee. In time Warren arrived ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... so nearly nude as greatly to scandalize the daughter of Saul. By the way, this incident has been always a stock argument for the extinction and decent interment of the unhappy anti dancer. Conceding the necessity of his extinction, I am yet indisposed to attach much weight to the Davidian precedent, for it does not appear that he was acting under divine command, directly or indirectly imparted, and whenever he followed the hest of his own sweet will David had a notable knack at going wrong. Perhaps the best value of the incident consists ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... I could scarcely contain. I had seen favour after favour heaped upon them by the late King, until he crowned all by elevating them to the rank of Princes of the Blood in defiance of all law, of all precedent, of all decency, if I must say the word. What I felt at this accumulation of honours I have more than once expressed; what I did to oppose such monstrous innovations has also been said. No man could be more against M. du Maine than I, and yet I opposed this proposition ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... precedent in so important a person as Aldana, aided, doubtless, by the conviction that no change was now to be expected in Pizarro, while delay would be fatal to himself, at length prevailed over Hinojosa's scruples, and he intimated to Gasca his willingness to place the fleet under his command. The ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... orders of Colonel Munro. The reason assigned for conduct so absurd that in real life it would have gone far to prove the parties having a hand in it not to be possessed of that sound and disposing mind and memory which the law requires as a condition precedent to making a will is, that hostile Indians, in search of chance scalps, would be hovering about the column of troops, and so leave the by-path unmolested. But the servants of the party follow the route of the column: a measure, we are told, dictated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... excellent speech, that the country should repay to the aged Jackson the fine which had been imposed upon him for contempt of court during the defense of New Orleans. An experienced opponent found him ready with a taking retort to every interruption. It being objected that there was absolutely no precedent for refunding the fine, "I presume," he replied, "that no case can be found on record, or traced by tradition, where a fine, imposed upon a general for saving his country, at the peril of his life and reputation, has ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... promised, and she intended to perform. By dint of smiles, pleasant words, kindly interests in "friends," and ceaseless doles of finery and physic, Cornelia had established such a hold upon the affections of the staff, that her wish already took precedent of her aunt's law. Mary mentally condemned half the contents of the silver cupboard to neglect, the while she ironed out foaming frills and ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... upon one point only in their numberless and wearisome discussions of the matter: Mrs. Prettyman had no legal claim upon Stoke Revel. To give her compensation for the plum tree would be to allow that she had; to create a precedent highly dangerous under the circumstances. How could one refuse to other old women or old men leaving their cottages what one had weakly granted to her? The demands would be unceasing, the trouble endless. So arguing, Mrs. de Tracy soon brought ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... that came from the White House on July 9, 1917, disclosed an exercise of presidential authority without precedent in American history in that it contemplated, with British cooperation, the virtual domination of the country's trade with the whole world. It provided for the absolute governmental control, by license, of the exports of essential war commodities to fifty-six nations ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... especially in its relation to mental disease, a profound metaphysician, and of great experience and insight in politics,—all these, while they may very well form the staple of separate treatises, and prove, that, whatever the extent of his learning, the range and accuracy of his knowledge were beyond precedent or later parallel, are really outside the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... did something against received opinion, against precedent, and for aught I know against even the prejudices of those I wish to serve, however lofty my intention was and however great the benefit to them in the end, it would still be a sacrifice in the present." He saw his own miserable logic and affected didactics, but he went on lightly, "But ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... to be taken into consideration besides personal and family improvement. Do you not know, Mr. James, that the most worthless and careless part of my congregation quote your example as a respectable precedent for allowing their families to violate the order of the Sabbath? You and your children sail about on the lake, with minds and hearts, I doubt not, elevated and tranquillized by its quiet repose; but Ben Dakes, and his idle, profane army of children, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Alexander Selkirk, as I am aware, commences his entertaining history with his birth and parentage, and as I am also a Crusoe, although a very minor adventurer, I may as well follow the precedent and declare my nativity. ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... serious form; from threats, public meetings were called, resolutions were passed, vengeance and destruction were threatned, and affairs again assumed a fearful attitude, Jackson county was a sufficient precedent, and as the authorities in that county did not interfere, they boasted that they would not in this, which on application to the authorities we found to be too true, and after much violence, privation and loss of property we were ...
— The Wentworth Letter • Joseph Smith

... it won't ever do for me, a brigadier in the regular army, to preside over that infant court-martial—there isn't any precedent for it, don't you see. Very well. I will go on examining authorities and reporting progress until she is well enough to get me out of this scrape by presiding herself. Do you get ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain

... the party strife that was still distracting the churches. In order to avoid a conflict over the matter, he refused to ask the consent of the Assembly, claiming the right of an incorporated college and the precedent of the English universities, since, in 1745, the Assembly had formally incorporated "The President and Fellows of Yale College," vesting in them all the usual powers appertaining to colleges. In the same ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... the O'Hara Family," Colman had forbidden certain lines to be chanted by monks and nuns in a scene of a foreign cathedral. It was too profane. What about the singing of "God save the King" upon the stage? That had been sanctioned by custom, Colman maintained; but he could not regard it as a precedent. Was he prepared to mutilate Portia's great speech in the "Merchant of Venice?" Certainly he was; but then custom had sanctioned it, and playgoers were not prepared for any meddling with the text of Shakespeare. He admitted, however, that he did not trouble himself ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... not acting after any precedent, or obeying any adopted maxims. The grand severity of the stoical philosophy in which her father had taken care to instruct her, was familiar enough to her ears and lips, and its lofty spirit had raised certain echoes within her; but she had never used it, never needed it as a rule of life. She ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... people under the age of eighteen, let us say, he would have to take his chance, and it would be a good one, of a prosecution. This latter expedient is less novel than the former, and it finds a sort of precedent in the legislative restriction of the sale of drink to children and the protection of children's morals ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... not eating her meals or asleep in her bed, absolute silence on Mrs. Presty's part was a circumstance without precedent in the experience of her daughter. Mrs. Presty was absolutely silent ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins

... to Borne, merely entered upon a transient agreement, by which Rome was bound to no concessions. The war openly declared by Rome was now attempted to be turned aside by means of petty and secret artifices. Several bishops, in imitation of the precedent given by Count von Spiegel, the peace-loving archbishop of Cologne, secretly bound themselves to interpret the brief in the sense of the government and to adhere to the ordinance of 1803. On Spiegel's decease ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... impression is evident from the gradually increasing brutality of his conduct, always most severe, but never so outrageous as in the case of the British captives. The savage, barbarous treatment he inflicted on Messrs. Stern, Cameron, Rosenthal, and their followers, is without precedent in modern history. Theodore at last took no trouble to hide his contempt ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... for remuneration of their services, but were at length contented. This was the signal for the others to take their advantage. They wanted toll to be paid for crossing part of the desert on which they thought the Jehaleen had no right or precedent for bringing strangers. So, on our preparing to leave the ground, they rushed up the bank, secured commanding points for their guns, and thus exacted their fee. The screams and hubbub were at length terminated by some small backsheesh, (to our surprise, how little was required,) and we all ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... hypothesis is that the present state of things has had only a limited duration; and that, at some period in the past, a condition of the world, essentially similar to that which we now know, came into existence, without any precedent condition from which it could have naturally proceeded. The assumption that successive states of Nature have arisen, each without any relation of natural causation to an antecedent state, is a mere modification ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... of the old French navy, cited by Mathieu-Dumas, explains exactly how Villeneuve might have turned the tables on Nelson by forming two lines himself. 'There is,' he concludes, 'no known precedent of a defensive formation in two lines; but I will venture to assert that if Admiral Villeneuve had doubled his line at the moment he saw Nelson meant to attack him in two lines, that admiral would never have had the imprudence of making such an ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... ill in the house: this latter circumstance, much to their honour, being considered in all cases as a protection. The chiefs agreed to confiscate the land of the aggressor to the King of England. The whole proceeding, however, in thus trying and punishing a chief was entirely without precedent. The aggressor, moreover, lost caste in the estimation of his equals; and this was considered by the British as of more consequence than the ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... nothing in this, Tom, without a precedent; but instead of riveting your eyes to a beauty, try to fix 'em upon a fortune; ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar

... then eager in every way for me to meet punishment; but do not, I beg you, be swayed by their slanders and condemn me, nor set aside those who came to a better and juster decision. For these have acted both in accord with custom and precedent, and evidently have done no wrong, caring most for justice. 20. So if these (the prosecutors) act illegally, I would be somewhat disturbed, considering it is established to treat enemies ill and friends ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias

... and in accordance with the precedent of the edition of 1832, a third poem, Stanzas to Augusta, has ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... whether that need be a precedent for you. I am answerable for her, and you could hardly keep out of it without making a ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... be very nearly the same to the parties in either form of judgment, would not justify this court in sanctioning an error in the judgment which is patent on the record, and which, if sanctioned, might be drawn into precedent, and lead to serious mischief and injustice in ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... at Christ Church was significant. Men felt that the days of monasteries were past, and the Church was ready to welcome and to extend the New Learning. But his changes were a dangerous precedent; as Fuller says with his usual quaintness: "All the forest of religious foundations in England did shake, justly fearing the King would finish to fell the oaks, seeing the Cardinal began to cut the underwood." Henry, however, when he swept away the ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells

... isn't it?" said his father. "It is an interesting fact, however, that Latin and the Latin text continued to be the language of the printed book for some time; this was not only because of an established precedent, but because the Renaissance in Italy revived an interest in classic literature. But by and by people demanded books in their native tongue. They wished to read something besides the classics—literature that was alive and a part ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... person for the landed interest. I gained some eclat on the road trusteeship, by opening a road which was a great public convenience, but I lost more than I gained there, by my allotments, which are looked on as a dangerous precedent. The cottages make me popular with those who have no votes, and with the more enlightened class of farmers, but the old school of tenants object to them, and almost all the landlords fear that they may be asked to lay out money in the same way. ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... derogatorie of their priviledges, he being a member of their house. While the 2 houses are thus contending he judges it safest for him to retire till this storme blow over, and this was also thought to have bein the King's advice to him, who was very sorrie at their procedor, thinking it a bad precedent for the house of commons to medle with persones so eminently neir to himselfe; yet in the breach he durst not stand but was forced to give them way, so much was Hyde hated in England, so that his Maj., rather then he will in the least endanger the disturbance of his oune peace and ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... father's face was apoplectic; he was leaning forward, trying to speak, but he was too choked for utterance. Nathaniel Puntz looked as though a wet sponge had been dashed upon his sleek countenance. The other directors stared, dumfounded. This case had no precedent in their experience. They were at a loss how ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin

... the slowness of this letter a precedent for delay, or imagine that I approved the incivility that I have committed; for I have known you enough to love you, and sincerely to wish a further knowledge; and I assure you once more, that to live in a house that contains such a father and such a son, will be accounted a very ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... It is difficult to question these two postulates, at least in the abstract. Only when we come to the application is there opportunity for difference. The third postulate, demanded alike by justice and humanity, is the establishment of some rule or precedent by which the recurrence of such a barbarous duel shall be prevented. It will not be enough to obtain a guaranty for Germany; there must be a guaranty ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... mentioned morning and evening and noon as fitting hours of prayer, and one psalmist, in his enthusiasm, had even gone so far as to declare seven times a day to be not too often for giving God thanks. There was also the precedent of Daniel opening his windows toward Jerusalem three times a day. As the love for order and system grew year by year stronger in the Christian Church, the laws that govern ritual would be likely to become more stringent, and so very probably it came to pass. For aught ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... battlefield. If the object of education is the cultivation of the power of thought and observation, the kindling of imagination, and the extension of knowledge; then "over there" is a University set in full array, with ghostly as well as human tutors, a curriculum without precedent, and such a body of undergraduates as Cambridge or ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various

... he replied:—"Why, it would not do to hang men limply for being guilty of a little piracy. Some of our leading chiefs might object to the precedent. But I will gladly aid you in looking for Signor Zappa; and if you catch him, of course you will be at liberty to treat him as you think fit. To be frank with you, I do not think you will find him unprepared in his strong-hold, and he ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston



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



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