precedence

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The state of preceding in importance or priority.

   “Family takes precedence over work, in an emergency.”

   “[…] where there is then no good / For which to strive, no strife can grow up there / From faction; for none sure will claim in hell / Precedence, none, whose portion is so small / Of present pain, that with ambitious mind / Will covet more.”

   “I wrote to […] Mr. Payne, who was wholly unconscious that we were engaged on the same work, and freely offered him precedence and possession of the field till no longer wanted.”

   “In the city of Zenith, in the barbarous twentieth century, a family's motor indicated its social rank as precisely as the grades of the peerage determined the rank of an English family—indeed, more precisely, considering the opinion of old county families upon newly created brewery barons and woolen-mill viscounts. The details of precedence were never officially determined.”

   “he saw to my twelve packages on one hand while on the other he dealt with the Emir of the Sea, the harbour master, who in a green gown and yellow turban, was demanding precedence of some sort.”

2. (countable, uncountable)Precedent.

   “Verses of probably no literary value, but illustrating a kind of rhythm, a melodic innovation that you will not find in Chaucer, though there is ample precedence in Provence”

   “[…] the intention certainly is that all parts of the amendment should cover comparable bodies in Scotland: There is perfectly good precedence for this in Part I of the Bill […]”

   “If such cases did exist, they seem not to have been committed to paper. Psychiatrists, in such circumstances, may have followed the precedence of their spiritual forebears—religious confessors—in respecting the privacy of their patients.”

   “I ran diagnostic programs and their solution was...I want to know more about you. I want to observe you. Such a compulsion has no precedence. Cause unknown. I, the perfect computer, I must diagnose this unusual situation.”

   “The ruling in favour of UBC also sets precedence on the matter of bicameral governance for universities and colleges.”