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Preeminent   /priˈɛmənənt/   Listen
Preeminent

adjective
1.
Greatest in importance or degree or significance or achievement.  Synonym: leading.  "The country's leading poet" , "A preeminent archeologist"






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"Preeminent" Quotes from Famous Books



... group of Death and the Soldier is preeminent. The field is covered with the wounded and the slain, in the midst of which the soldier encounters his last enemy. The man is armed in panoply, and wields a huge two-handed sword with a vigor unabated by former struggles. Death has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... chance to read these simple pages shall have gathered aught of my character from their perusal, he will marvel, perchance, that I should give the lieutenant my parole, instead rather of watching for an opportunity to—at least—attempt an escape. Preeminent in my thoughts, however, stood at that moment the necessity to remove St. Auban, and methought that by acting as I did I saw a way by which, haply, I might accomplish this. What might thereafter befall ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... expressed his unbounded admiration for Luther as a "preeminent servant of Christ—praeclarus Christi servus." (C. R. 37, 54.) In his Answer of 1543 against the Romanist Pighius he said: "Concerning Luther we testify without dissimulation now as heretofore that we esteem him as a distinguished apostle of Christ, by whose labor and service, above all, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... public has answered for us; for I believe there is scarcely a preeminent man of science or letters, at home or abroad, who has not received a popular nomination for the vacant professorships. Some of these candidates we shall certainly secure, and their names will be one by one made known. But I must tell you, in domestic confidence, that it is not an easy ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner

... attend Abraham Shue's sale: The candidates for seats in the Convention to meet in Richmond were on the ground, actively speaking both publicly and privately. Mr. George Chrisman, one of them, a man of preeminent wisdom in things relating to government, publicly avowed himself opposed to secession on the basis of both principle and policy. "On the ground of principle," said he, "secession violates the pledge of sacred honor made by the several States when they set their hands and seals to the Constitution ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... excellency's return to enjoy private and domestic felicity, permit us, sir, the members of Lodge No. 39, lately established in Alexandria, to assure your excellency, that we, as a mystical body, rejoice in having a brother so near us, whose preeminent benevolence has secured the happiness of millions; and that we shall esteem ourselves highly honored at all times your excellency shall be pleased to join ...
— Washington's Masonic Correspondence - As Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress • Julius F. Sachse

... at all times particularly friendly and harmonious. While they were always directors who directed instead of mere figureheads, they nevertheless were broad enough and wise enough to give the Principal a very free rein. Preeminent among the able and devoted Trustees of Tuskegee was the late William H. Baldwin, Jr. In order to commemorate his life and work the William H. Baldwin, Jr., Memorial Fund of $150,000 was raised by a committee ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... of physical frailty and poverty to an honored place at the Boston bar, and in 1812, at the age of thirty, was elected to Congress. To the Senate he brought, in 1827, qualities that gave him at once a preeminent position. His massive head, beetling brow, flashing eye, and stately carriage attracted instant attention wherever he went. His physical impressiveness was matched by lofty traits of character and by extraordinary powers of intellect; and by 1830 he had acquired a reputation for forensic ability ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... case? We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign language. The claims of our own language it is hardly necessary to recapitulate. It stands preeminent even among the languages of the West. It abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us; with models of every species of eloquence; with historical compositions, which, considered merely as narratives, have seldom been ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... towering fortunes have hitherto been described in two ways. On the one hand, they have been held up as marvels of success, as preeminent examples of thrift, enterprise and extraordinary ability. More recently, however, the tendency in certain quarters has been diametrically the opposite. This latter class of writers, intent upon pandering to ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... lines of extreme pacificism—surely not as long as things are as they are. The argument of the lamb has small deterrent effect upon the wolf—as long as the wolf is a wolf. And sometimes wolves hunt in packs. The most preeminent lesson of the great war for us as a nation should be this—there should be constantly a degree of preparedness sufficient to hold until all the others, the various portions of the nation, thoroughly coordinated ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine

... Dutch, and the English had previously dealt thus justly with the natives. It is in comparison with Pizarro and Cortes that the colonists of all other nations in America appear to an advantage; but the fame of William Penn stands, and ever will stand, preeminent for unexceptionable justice and peace in his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... this as it may, there will probably be little dissent from the opinion that the characteristic trait common to the two is an unrivaled scientific sagacity. In this these two naturalists seem to us, each in his way, preeminent. There is a characteristic likeness, too—underlying much difference—in their admirable manner of dealing with facts closely, and at first hand, without the interposition of the formal laws, vague ideal conceptions, or "glittering generalities" which ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... of iniquity and vileness invokes the abyss of strength and splendour to praise Thy preeminent Glory.' Well, is that pretty well expressed, our friend? Try; recite that to Our Lady and She will unbind you; then prayer will come of itself. Such little ways are permitted by Her, and we must be humble enough not to presume ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... this it can be seen what the governors there are, namely, that they are such as are preeminent in love and wisdom, and therefore desire the good of all, and from wisdom know how to provide for the realization of that good. Such governors do not domineer or dictate, but they minister and serve (to serve meaning to do good to others from a love of the good, and to minister ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... of Overbeck had been for generations preeminent for learning and piety, and biographers have scarcely sufficiently taken into account either the Classic or the Christian inheritance of the painter. Religious teaching and living came by long lineal descent (see Family Chart on page xvi.): ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson

... this foreign shore, Yet well I recollect the timid glance Of wonder and amazement which I cast On those heroic forms. When they went forth It seem'd as though Olympus had sent down The glorious figures of a bygone world, To frighten Ilion; and above them all, Great Agamemnon tower'd preeminent! Oh, tell me! Fell the hero in his home, Through ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Lark, coming to Carol's rescue. Carol was very good at meeting investigation, but when it came to prolonged explanation, Lark stood preeminent. "Of course, we don't believe it—yet. But there are some good things in it. Part of it is very beautiful. We don't just understand it,—it's very deep. But some of the ideas are very ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... sound judgment of the critic, Carleton would not be reckoned, as he himself knew well, in the front rank of orators. Neither in overmastering grace of person, in power of unction, in magnetic conquest of the mind and will, was he preeminent. When, leaving the flowery meadows of description or rising from the table-land of noble sentiment and inspiring precepts, he attempted to rise in soaring eloquence, his oratorical abilities did not match the grandeur of his thought or ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... VII. ANSERES.—Preeminent in size and beauty, the tall flamingoes[1], with rose-coloured plumage, line the beach in long files. The Singhalese have been led, from their colour and their military order, to designate them the "English Soldier birds." Nothing can be more startling ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... to me, best understood the heart of a child. Other sweet singers have given us the homely life of the Western cabin, the unexpected tenderness of the mountaineer, the loyalty and quaint devotion of the negro servant, but to Field alone, and in preeminent degree, was given that keen insight into child nature, that compassion for its faults, that sympathy with its sorrows and that delight in its joyous innocence which will endear him to his race as long as ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field

... the Horsemen's chariot, to the house men have to protect. When the swollen soma-stalks are milked like cows with udders, and when the choric songs are sung, then they that adore the Horsemen are preeminent.... ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... means lion, carrying with it the same meaning as pre-eminence. And is not this Pyramid preeminent? and is it not the lion of monuments, pre-eminent as being the oldest, pre-eminent as being the highest, pre-eminent as being the largest, pre-eminent in location—being central to all the land surface of the earth, pre-eminent in construction, ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... Sadducees regarded the books which contained these passages as sacred, it is more than doubtful whether any of the Jews regarded them as sacred in precisely the same sense as the written Law. To the Jews Moses was and is a colossal form, preeminent in authority above ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... and Its Theology. The Lutheran Church Review, 1917: "It is doubtful whether any other single book ever published in America by any theologian more profoundly impressed a large [English] church constituency, or did more to mold its character. As theologian and confessor Dr. Krauth stands preeminent in the [English] Lutheran Church." (144.) For twenty years Charles Porterfield Krauth was one of the prominent theologians of the General Synod, and since 1866 the leader and most conservative, competent, and influential theologian of the General Council. Krauth was a star of the first ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... dignity. The Ardennes, in short—and this is their scenic weakness—never attain to the proper mountain spirit. There is a further point, however, in which they also recall Derbyshire, but in which they are far preeminent. This is the vast agglomeration of caves and vertical potholes—like those in Craven, but here called etonnoirs—that riddle the rolling wolds in all directions. Chief among these is the mammoth cave of Han, ...
— Beautiful Europe - Belgium • Joseph E. Morris

... persuasive personality. Appearance, manner, voice, were all instruments of attractiveness, fitting modes of expression to a gentle and noble spirit. When a friend and comrade of King's earlier ministry was asked to name the preacher's preeminent gift, he immediately answered, "his voice." The reply seems trivial. Yet it was seriously spoken by one whose knowledge of King during his Boston ministry was close and personal. William Everett, who had listened ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds

... his preeminent position, the First Hall-man was reputed to be quite wealthy. In addition to his miscellaneous grafts, he grafted on us. We farmed the general wretchedness, and the First Hall-man was Farmer-General over all of us. We held our particular ...
— The Road • Jack London

... Kenelm read it listlessly, with an increased contempt for an artist who could so find in gratified vanity consolation for the life gone from earth. But, listlessly as he read the letter, the sincere and fervent enthusiasm of the laudatory contents impressed him, and the preeminent authority of the signature could not ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... woods till the mould under the leaves is warm and emits an odor! The waters glint and sparkle, the birds gather in groups, and even those unwont to sing find a voice. On the streets of the cities, what a flutter, what bright looks and gay colors! I recall one preeminent day of this kind last April. I made a note of it in my notebook. The earth seemed suddenly to emerge from a wilderness of clouds and chilliness into one of these blue sunlit spaces. How the voyagers rejoiced! Invalids came forth, old men sauntered ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... among the great families of the Lebanon, during the last century and a half preeminent, has been the House of Shehaab, possessing entirely one of the provinces, and widely disseminated and powerfully endowed in several of the others. Since the commencement of the eighteenth century, the virtual sovereignty of the country has been exercised by a prince ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... Who could solve the two problems at the same time? Who did solve them? The tribune! The tribune is peace, and the tribune is conquest. Conquest by the sword,—who wants it? Nobody. The peoples are fatherlands. Conquest by ideas,—who wants it? Everybody. The peoples are mankind. Now two preeminent tribunes dominated the nations—the English tribune doing business, and the French tribune creating ideas. The French tribune had elaborated after '89 all the principles which form the political philosopher's stone, and it had begun to elaborate ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... constrained position, and bullying them as in a witness-box. As usual in such cases, the most audacious and self-possessed were the lucky recipients of the honors. The reader will imagine that in the present instance M'liss and Clytie were preeminent and divided public attention: M'liss with her clearness of material perception and self- reliance, and Clytie with her placid self-esteem and saintlike correctness of deportment. The other little ones were timid and blundering. M'liss's readiness and brilliancy, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... ideal he had ever had, besides one, was to arrive at the fine fame of printer's ink: headlines, bill-boards, critical notices, reproductions of his photograph. But this was long ago. He had longed to be chronicled in his time, preeminent and large; this he had desired with that hungry passion for display which only an actor can feel. But this, remember, was once upon a time. His other ideal—no need to mention it amid Momus and his mimes!—was to sway people with laughter ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... some measure succeeded in demonstrating that the former two, instead of being rules, were mere inconveniences attached to the local peculiarities of the Athenian drama; that the last alone deserved the name of a principle, and that in the preservation of this unity Shakspeare stood preeminent. Yet, instead of unity of action, I should greatly prefer the more appropriate, though scholastic and uncouth, words homogeneity, proportionateness, and totality of interest,—expressions, which involve the distinction, or rather ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... find the spirit of the period best illustrated by a study of two great men who are preeminent in the educational affairs of the ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley

... to the vanquished! Falter not, seeker of universal happiness! Cry but once with us: 'Woe to the oppressors of the people!' and stand preeminent o'er all, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... himself a clear frosty November morning, the scene an open heath, having for the background that huge chain of mountains in which Skiddaw and Saddleback are preeminent; let him look along that BLIND ROAD, by which I mean the track so slightly marked by the passengers' footsteps that it can but be traced by a slight shade of verdure from the darker heath around it, and, being only visible to the eye when at some distance, ceases to be distinguished while the foot ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... upon conduct, to appreciate what that almost forgotten half-century of conflict meant to the development of our national character, would be to realize the greatest value that colonial history can have for its students. It lays bare the source of that strength which made New England preeminent in the Revolution, and which has placed the mint mark of New England idealism upon the coin of American character. Could a pupil who has lived vicariously through such experiences as these easily forsake ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... markets, its shops, its inns, lacked not business. Its churches were thronged with worshipers. Through its narrow streets proud noble and prouder ecclesiastic, thrifty merchant and active artisan, passed and repassed in an unceasing stream. It was rich in points of interest, preeminent among which were its castle and its convent. In the castle the stout-hearted Loudunians found a refuge and a stronghold against the ambitions of the feudal lords and the tyranny of the crown. To its convent, pleasantly situated in a grove ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce

... instinctive philosophy which, now and then, stands so well in the stead of experience, Mr. Ellison would have found himself precipitated, by the very extraordinary successes of his life, into the common vortex of Unhappiness which yawns for those of preeminent endowments. But it is by no means my present object to pen an essay on Happiness. The ideas of my friend may be summed up in a few words. He admitted but four unvarying laws, or rather elementary principles, of Bliss. That which he considered chief, was (strange to say!) ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... this, a large class of surgical diseases of the male is of so delicate a nature as altogether to forbid inspection by female students. Yet a complete understanding of this particular class of diseases is of preeminent importance to the community. Moreover, such affections can be thoroughly studied only in the clinics of the large cities, and the opportunity for studying them, so far from being curtailed, should be extended to the utmost possible ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... on their priests the strictest celibacy. There was a father who thought that attention should be paid to Christ only, of whom it is said, "Hear ye him," and that no regard should be had to what others before us have either said or done, only to what has been commanded by Christ, who is preeminent over all. This landmark they neither prescribe to themselves, nor permit to be observed by others, when they set up over themselves and others any masters rather than Christ. There was a father[34] who contended that the Church ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... have been smitten with his son's singular beauty and accomplishments. It was also said, he added, that the lady had prevailed on her father to sanction young Osborne's addresses to her, and that the baronet, who was a strong political partizan, calculating upon his preeminent talents, intended to bring him into parliament, in order to strengthen his party. He added that he himself was then starting for London, to pursue his son, and rescue him from an act which would stamp his name with utter ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... Demosthenes stands preeminent among Greek orators. His well-known oration "On the Crown," the preparation of which occupied a large part of seven years, is regarded as the oratorical ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser

... candle it is necessary again to go back to an early period, for it slowly evolved in the course of many centuries. It is the natural descendant of the rushlight, the grease-lamp, and various primitive devices. Until the advent of the more scientific age of artificial lighting, the candle stood preeminent among early light-sources. It did not emit appreciable smoke or odor and it was conveniently portable and less fragile than the oil-lamp. Candles have been used throughout the Christian era and some authorities ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... and her wonderful powers of persuasion were more influential than the loyalty of any dozen men in France in attaching to him the adherents who would promote his interests. Josephine was to the drawing-room and the salon what Napoleon was to the field—a preeminent leader. The secret of her personality that made her the Empress not only of the hearts of the Frenchmen, but also of the nations her husband conquered, has been beautifully told by herself. "There is only one occasion," she said ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... taken away these privileges in the case stated in the passage under consideration, would have been preeminent rigor; for the case described, is not that of a servant born in the house of a master, nor that of a minor, whose unexpired minority had been sold by the father, neither was it the case of an Israelite, who though of age, had not yet acceded to his inheritance; nor, finally, was it that of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... true that the holy men through whom the Almighty thought meet to reveal his intentions relative to the church, were usually selected from the order of persons now described. But there were several exceptions, among whom stood preeminent the eloquent Daniel and the pathetic Amos. To prophesy, therefore, in the later times of the Hebrew commonwealth meant most generally the explication and enforcement of Divine truth—an import of the term which was ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... vindication. The Turks turned to this historic and preeminent friend for succor. The Turkish cabinet cabled frantically to Great Britain to intercede for them; the people in mass-meeting in ancient St. Sophia's echoed the same appeal. For grim humor, the spectacle has scarcely an equal in modern history. Besought and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... or preeminent grandee; office held by Otomo and then Mononobe; political rivalry with o-omi; opposing Buddhism; property of, unimportant after the Daika; not in ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... by coloring and arrangement, may be made to support the views of a party, and history becomes a political pamphlet indefinitely prolonged. Here point is the one thing needful,—to be attained at all hazards, whether by the turn of a sentence or the twisting of a motive. Macaulay is preeminent in this kind, and woe to the party or the man that comes between him and his epigrammatic necessity! Again, there is the new light, or perhaps, more properly, the forlorn-hope method, where the author ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... Neither to gloss over the outrageous reality nor to lose our resistant obstinacy, whatever such reality may do to us, is the last word of noble commonsense. And it is a noble commonsense which, after all, is Voltaire's preeminent gift. ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... were most frequently found battling for the freedom of the Church from the despotic grafters inside and outside of the hierarchy, and for the purity of the gospel. The Church was a chief part of the social order, and the reform of the Church was the preeminent social problem. Today the Church is on the whole free from graft, and as openminded as the state of public intelligence permits it to be. Therefore the prophet minds are now set free to fight for the freedom of the people in political government ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... directly and purely Darwinian elements I should class as preeminent the work of Wallace and of Bates; for no two sets of facts have done more to fix in ordinary intelligent minds a belief in organic evolution and in natural selection as its guiding factor than the facts of geographical distribution and of protective colour and mimicry. The facts of ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... noticed that, lovely as the shadbush is, its smaller flowers have shorter pedicels than the serviceberry's; consequently its feathery sprays, which are flung outward to the sunshine in April and May, lack something of the grace for which its sister stands preeminent. Under cultivation both species assume conventional form, and lose the wild irregularities of growth that charm us in Nature's garden. Indians believed, what is an obvious fact, that when this bush whitens the swampy river banks, shad are swimming up the stream from the sea to spawn. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... still be "the law of the Medes and Persians." Official employments would be open to the people of both countries. Even the fame and glory of empire would attain, in the minds of men, almost as much to the one nation as the other. If Media descended from her preeminent rank, it was to occupy a station only a little below the highest, and one which left her a very distinct superiority over all the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson



Words linked to "Preeminent" :   leading, superior, preeminence



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