Literary notes about Precedence (AI summary)
In literature, the term "precedence" is employed to indicate a ranking or ordering of importance, whether it be social, legal, or intellectual. It can denote the primacy of a person within a hierarchy, as seen when a high-ranking official is given precedence in duty or honor ([1], [2]). Authors also use the concept to discuss the ways in which certain virtues or ideas override others in value, with moral or intellectual priorities taking the forefront ([3], [4]). In matters of etiquette and social custom, precedence appears frequently to establish the proper sequence for seating or ceremonial order, highlighting the care taken in public and private conduct ([5], [6]). At times, precedence signals not just institutional or social rank but also the timing or evolution of thought, underscoring debates where earlier ideas or practices are given primacy over newer ones ([7], [8]).
- In February 1840, precedence over him was given to the permanent secretary of the Académie des Sciences, Monsieur Flourens.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud - The chief, unless he is too old, joins in dances and even in games, and indeed he takes precedence as a matter of course.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski - Justice, for instance, is a virtue, and so necessary to society, that all others must yield her the precedence.
— from Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle - Hence it follows that the claims of human society and the bonds that unite men together take precedence of the pursuit of speculative knowledge.
— from De Officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero - The question of precedence at table was also decided.
— from A Diplomat in Japan by Ernest Mason Satow - Or if a younger woman has been long away she, in this instance of welcoming her home, takes precedence over her elders.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post - That the language question should take precedence of the economic question.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - Though in form he states his doctrine as a relation of contrast between the two, in substance it resolves itself into a question of precedence.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon by J. B. Lightfoot
