dynamic
toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

precedent
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • In the first place, there was no precedent to show us how to behave or what to feel.†   (source)
  • And all of them had to be considered in the context of precedent.†   (source)
  • There is no precedent for what Peeta has done.†   (source)
  • The sheriff's wife greeted them graciously and set a precedent by having them sit in the living room, while her maid served them coffee.†   (source)
  • They can hit us, there's Scriptural precedent.†   (source)
  • Nothing on this day had conformed to any precedent.†   (source)
  • They had to be careful because the decision would serve as precedent for all future Government Pachyderm Carcass Disposals.†   (source)
  • There is precedent, sir.†   (source)
  • It could happen—possibly, unlikely, but there is precedent—that the river might sweep my body all the way to the ocean.†   (source)
  • "After it was decided to admit you in the manner you had suggested—" Lorren gave a brief but significant pause, leading me to believe that it had not been quite as simple as that "—there was the problem that there was no precedent set for giving out funds to enrolling students."†   (source)
  • I didn't want to ask permission — it set a bad precedent — but I felt rude, so I tacked it on at the end.†   (source)
  • Perhaps he thought I was setting a precedent that other soon-to-be-tenured professors would be unwilling to equal.†   (source)
  • "I had no precedent," Gronau said.†   (source)
  • The federal court hearing would be one of the most significant in history—a precedent-setting decision could be made that affected the whole country.†   (source)
  • This was absolutely un-precedented in the Jewish community at that time.†   (source)
  • Ironically, in his decision, the judge cited the HeLa cell line as a precedent for what happened with the Mo cell line.†   (source)
  • There is precedent for this, sir.†   (source)
  • Y.T. establishes her space on the pavement by zagging mightily from lane to lane, establishing a precedent of scary randomness.†   (source)
  • There is precedent, however.†   (source)
  • The 13s had heeded the precedent set by Luma's cancellation of the 15s' season; a full roster had turned out for the game.†   (source)
  • No precedent exists to draw upon for wisdom.†   (source)
  • There had already been a horrible precedent.†   (source)
  • There is precedent for this: Liet serves two masters.†   (source)
  • I was at war with myself I didn't want to fail him, but any warmth on my part today would set a bad precedent.†   (source)
  • There was no precedent, he wrote, for a private organization to sue a state entity in his court.†   (source)
  • There is anticipation in the air but it is not the expectant midsummer hum of a shirt sleeve crowd, a sandlot game, with coherent precedents, a history of secure response.†   (source)
  • "I was interested in the legal precedent for giving consent on behalf of one's descendants," Caleb says.†   (source)
  • He searched for an answer and found none, except that there was no precedent to judge it by.†   (source)
  • In terms of current Japanese legal precedent, it was the obvious sentence for a case like that.†   (source)
  • The contrast between the thin, fit, and well-to-do and the illness-ridden, poor, and obese has no historical precedent.†   (source)
  • Prompted by Mr. Steerman, the Bar Association undertook a course of action without precedent in Kansas legal history: it appointed a young Wichita attorney, Russell Shultz, to investigate the charges and, should evidence warrant it, challenge the validity of the conviction by bringing habeas corpus proceedings in the Kansas Supreme Court, which had recently upheld the verdict.†   (source)
  • It was against all reasonable mountain precedent to trade so quickly; but indeed Shade had merely done so with a view to forcing through what he well knew to be a doubtful proposition.†   (source)
  • This would set a precedent that could touch off mass hijackings, the way it's happened in other countries.†   (source)
  • But a secret police that broadcasts its tapes over the radiothere's something that could happen only in Prague, something absolutely without precedent!†   (source)
  • The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor.†   (source)
  • They didn't want to set a precedent, they explained.†   (source)
  • He has enough trouble watching out for his 27 overgrown children in a military operation that has no precedent.†   (source)
  • There was no precedent, at least not in the Fifth Circuit, for a federal court to get involved in a contempt ruling in state court.†   (source)
  • With issues of such immense national consequence to be addressed, policies to be considered and resolved, precedents to establish, laws to enact, an entire new structure for the governance of the nation to be brought into being, could he, given his nature, do justice to the essentially passive, ceremonial role he had been chosen to fill?†   (source)
  • A series of five-minute telephone calls over a two-week period does not establish much precedent for the evening that now stretches lengthily ahead.†   (source)
  • So there was a precedent for our discussion.†   (source)
  • There was no precedent for a patient like Jared to be added to the waiting list.†   (source)
  • I don't have any precedent here.†   (source)
  • That's hard enough to buy, but at least there's precedent for it.†   (source)
  • There was no precedent for what to do with siblings—with the strict population laws, a couple was never allowed to have more than one child, and sometimes, they weren't permitted to have any at all—and so no one in the Colony understood what it meant to have a brother or sister.†   (source)
  • It's also an important part of our common citizenship; the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the judicial precedents, all these are in English.†   (source)
  • Kevan could make use of that precedent.†   (source)
  • The lawyers for both sides have to make their arguments and precedents must be adhered to.†   (source)
  • Postgraduate study was not permitted, but they made an exception in my case because I had established a precedent when I was in Pretoria.†   (source)
  • Haste and orders took precedent.†   (source)
  • If I approved this, what kind of precedent would I be setting?†   (source)
  • At least, in stealing, we have not created the villainous precedent of taxation.†   (source)
  • Believe me, there is precedent for this.†   (source)
  • "Miss Taggart," he said gaily, "I'm curious about you, I'm curious whenever anything upsets a precedent.†   (source)
  • Why it had been sent was as yet unrevealed, but, judging by precedent, there had very likely been a phase of irreligious arrogance prevailing at the time.†   (source)
  • Drew and I have spent the past three hours at his dining room table with dueling laptops, pulling up research and precedents for the most boring argument ever on term limits.†   (source)
  • But he also realizes that by allowing Virginia's lawmakers to meet without close Federal observation, he is setting a dangerous precedent.†   (source)
  • The study of these federal precedents is important.†   (source)
  • She had warned me on the telephone that it was exceedingly rare for a single man to be granted an adoption, that in fact there was no precedent for it and so really no reason for a meeting.†   (source)
  • There was precedent for what they were doing; during World War II, British intelligence kept an entire network of captured German spies alive and functioning in the minds of their Abwehr controllers, feeding them false and deceptive intelligence in the process.†   (source)
  • GUIL: You and I, Alfred-we could create a dramatic precedent here.†   (source)
  • If we allow a private to influence the thinking of the recruits, then a precedent has been set.†   (source)
  • True to Departmental precedent, the bow and stern sections of this canoe had been shipped to another biologist who was studying rattlesnakes in the south Saskatchewan desert.†   (source)
  • This created a tension and a frustration without precedent in the relationship between the sexes.†   (source)
  • JUDGE There's no precedent for this sort of thing.†   (source)
  • The lawyers can look up their precedents, they can hang you because they hung some poor devil in 1866.†   (source)
  • I'll have created a precedent that will compel Karellen to take some action.†   (source)
  • It was totally outside his experience and without precedent in history.†   (source)
  • MORE There are precedents.†   (source)
  • Other precedents had already divided the Senate and the White House.†   (source)
  • The comeback, if successful, would be un-precedented.†   (source)
  • Pride and precedent cannot overshadow reason.†   (source)
  • While I admit this is an extreme example, our conclusion is decidedly not without precedent.†   (source)
  • There are several precedents, I believe.†   (source)
  • In one way, at least, Luma's harsh reaction to Mandela had precedent.†   (source)
  • To have others see royalty in such straits—it set a bad precedent.†   (source)
  • And even better—it provided the one element I'd been lacking in this case: a historical precedent.†   (source)
  • So when it came to sharing their lives, the Wolfs had a precedent.†   (source)
  • If he set a precedent of letting einherjar return to the world, wouldn't others want to go too?†   (source)
  • There is more precedent for that than for releasing a Sworn Brother from his oath.†   (source)
  • I don't believe any State has a precedent for this.†   (source)
  • Some rockhead wanted to embalm this dead flesh, giving Lenin as a precedent.†   (source)
  • We consulted a psychiatrist, too, but there's no precedent for symptoms like this.†   (source)
  • Tradition and established precedent leave me only three choices.†   (source)
  • Too many people objecting, they say, afraid of some fool precedent or another!†   (source)
  • That'll make it seem like we're just following precedent.†   (source)
  • Regrettably, the attack in Toulouse was not without precedent or ample warning.†   (source)
  • "See if you can find a precedent," he said.†   (source)
  • Any other plan would be contrary to reason, precedent, and decorum.†   (source)
  • And it creates a precedent for other breaches when a necessity does not exist or is less urgent.†   (source)
  • But Farmer seemed worried about the expense, and perhaps the precedent, of a medevac flight.†   (source)
  • Therefore, precedents will swell to a very large bulk.†   (source)
  • Well, I sure don't want to become a precedent.†   (source)
  • I was wildly excited but hopelessly confused, with no precedent to guide me in this turn of events.†   (source)
  • To set a precedent, I guess.†   (source)
  • Langdon hesitated, realizing that for many religious people, there was indeed a precedent for human gods, Jesus being the most obvious.†   (source)
  • For this there were many historical precedents; in fact, no empire imposed by force or otherwise has ever been without this feature: control of the indigenous by members of their own group.†   (source)
  • It would set a bad precedent.†   (source)
  • You've got all of these competing factors-the parties involved, the victims, law enforcement, society, even precedent-and you somehow have to use them to solve the problem within a given framework.'†   (source)
  • That case set no precedent because it settled out of court, with rights to the cells being divided between the parties involved in the lawsuit, which didn't include the cell "donor."†   (source)
  • Because there's no precedent for it.†   (source)
  • She tried to speak to Jose Arcadio Segundo, to let him know about that precedent, but Aureliano Segundo told her that since the night of the attempt on his life no one knew his whereabouts.†   (source)
  • The Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment precedent requires not only that a particular sentence offend "evolving standards of decency.'†   (source)
  • Gilead outlawed the first two as irreligious but legitimized and enforced the third, which was considered to have Biblical precedents; they thus replaced the serial polygamy common in the pre-Gilead period with the older form of simultaneous polygamy practiced both in early Old Testament times and in the former state of Utah in the nineteenth century.†   (source)
  • Probably, he thought, they want to demonstrate that they can trail their coats down our coast whenever they want, to show that they have a seagoing fleet and to establish a precedent for doing this again.†   (source)
  • And in fact, there are precedents for such a case, including one in which a woman successfully had her father's DNA removed from a database in Iceland.†   (source)
  • Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula were not aware of the family precedent, nor did they remember Ursula's frightening admonitions, and the midwife pacified them with the idea that the tail could be cut off when the child got his second teeth.†   (source)
  • What Hrothgar did by adopting you has no precedent in all of our history, and it cannot be undone unless, as grimstborith, I banish you from our clan.†   (source)
  • I know a precedent, said Tereza.†   (source)
  • He knew what they were thinking: Not only did this case lack precedent, but the time frame was too short.†   (source)
  • He was a competent lawyer, excelling in cases where firm legal precedent had been set and could be cited.†   (source)
  • No, she said, she didn't want to sue and neither, despite poor precedent and all his eloquent listing of the risks, did she want a termination.†   (source)
  • Yet I knew that if we defeated the terrorists on the bridge that morning, we would be setting a precedent for the world to see, sending a message to terrorists all over the world that our nation would not buckle under to intimidation.†   (source)
  • "Precedent," she said bitterly.†   (source)
  • If we could unite the two organizations on the island, that could set a precedent for uniting them in the liberation struggle as a whole.†   (source)
  • There's precedent.†   (source)
  • I mentioned that my new accommodations were superior, and maybe this would set a precedent for all political prisoners.†   (source)
  • The first was that Jared might not be approved by the transplant committee—that despite his grave condition, there was no precedent for adding a patient to the waiting list who'd been in an automobile accident.†   (source)
  • Though he believed slavery to be a disgusting institution, Thompson was a steadfast proponent of legal precedent who would never let personal opinions interfere with the judgment of a case.†   (source)
  • As any man with experience in these things will tell you, Thadeus, the only way to get on the Supreme Court is to have a sound record based on precedent, legal scholarship, and prudent judgment.†   (source)
  • Thompson certainly realizes that if we get a federal court to admit that these men have rights as guaranteed by the Constitution, and if Holabird succeeds in proving they are slaves, the precedent set would strike at the very heart of slavery.†   (source)
  • To avoid arbitrary decisions, the courts should follow strict rules and precedents that define their duty in every case that comes before them.†   (source)
  • Along with having to fight the resources of Holabird, Hungerford, Isham, and the Van Buren administration, they were facing the prospects of defending a politically charged case that was devoid of any established legal precedents which could work in their favor.†   (source)
  • Precedents Show Errors to Avoid†   (source)
  • At best the lawyer established a precedent: a man sentenced to life in prison instead of the chair because of "extenuating emotional circumstances.†   (source)
  • PLAYER: Precedent.†   (source)
  • Maintaining that the overwhelmingly hostile Democratic Legislature did not truly represent the people, Governor Houston violated all precedent by delivering his inaugural address directly to the people from the steps of the Capitol, instead of before a joint session of the Legislature.†   (source)
  • "I do not mean to belabor this point of language, your honor," I continued, "but I would like to cite a precedent case for the benefit of the court.†   (source)
  • (Hiccoughs) But since there has been no previous violation of this statute, there is no precedent to guide the bench in pasting sentence†   (source)
  • That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until"My God," says a second man, "I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn."†   (source)
  • Ah well, I thought, if I have become a pederast, so be it; there was ample precedent for my condition, since although I had not been formally confined or caged, I may have just as well been in prison or on a timeless voyage on a brigantine as far as my lifelong efforts at good, wholesome, heterosexual screwing were concerned.†   (source)
  • Although illness in the family had prevented him from arriving in time to vote on ratification of President Jefferson's treaty for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, he promptly aroused a storm of controversy by becoming the only Federalist to support that precedent-shattering acquisition actively on the floor and to vote for an $11 million appropriation to effectuate it.†   (source)
  • George Norris called the President's scathing indictment a grave injustice to men who conscientiously tried to do their duty as they saw it; but, except for the unfortunate and unhelpful praise bestowed upon them by the German press, "the epithets heaped upon these men were without precedent in the annals of American journalism.†   (source)
  • I was, of course, years younger (and a postpubescent pimple blossoming next to my nose, glimpsed in the mirror just then, underscored the fact), but this was a trifling matter with many historical precedents to make it right, or at least acceptable.†   (source)
  • Now, in accordance with established rules and precedents, I desire to give my experience before you proceed to my immersion.†   (source)
  • She took his dictation with care, but because of his runaway fervor, in some haste, so it was not until she got down to the job of typing it out for the printer that she began to glimpse seething in that cauldron of historical allusions and dialectical hypotheses and religious imperatives and legal precedents and anthropological propositions the smoky, ominous presence of a single word—repeated several times—which quite baffled and confounded and frightened her, appearing as it did in this otherwise persuasively practical text, this clever polemic which voiced with breezily scurrilous mockery the sly propaganda she had half heard more than once over the Bieganski dinner table.†   (source)
  • He drew up briefs, served summonses, examined deeds and records, and searched out precedents.†   (source)
  • It has reached a scale of horror without precedent.†   (source)
  • But, Paneloux continued, there were other precedents of which he would now remind them.†   (source)
  • And precedents.†   (source)
  • It is contrary to every principle we have tried to teach you, contrary to all established precedents and traditions of Art.†   (source)
  • She got up the stairs alone and limped straight through the house to her room, where she further laid out precedent by locking the door.†   (source)
  • The essence of his position was that the principle of exclusion has no inner check; that arbitrarily barring one minority from the exercise of its rights can be both a precedent and a moral sanction for barring another, and that it creates a frame of mind from which no one can expect justice or security.†   (source)
  • Naturally a war of this sort was likely to be hedged with etiquette, just as foxhunting is hedged with it It would begin at the advertised meet, weather permitting, and it would be conducted according to precedent But Arthur had a different idea in his head.†   (source)
  • As the cooler air refreshed them, the passengers could hardly believe that it had really happened; it was an outrage to which none could recall any parallel, or suggest any precedent, in all the turbulent records of the frontier.†   (source)
  • He was then told that it did affect the position, already difficult, of the authorities, who were against showing any favoritism and thus running the risk of creating what, with obvious repugnance, they called "a precedent."†   (source)
  • And, indeed, the one crime led on to the other; the first of these two criminals, the man in the dock, set a precedent, if I may put it so, and authorized the second crime.†   (source)
  • In the first half of the month of January, still penitently true to the New Year's reformation, he begot a child: by Spring, when it was evident that Eliza was again pregnant, he had hurled himself into an orgy to which even a notable four months' drunk in 1896 could offer no precedent.†   (source)
  • In the past such a state of affairs has usually resolved itself into a motionless Alexandrianism, an academicism in which the really important issues are left untouched because they involve controversy, and in which creative activity dwindles to virtuosity in the small details of form, all larger questions being decided by the precedent of the old masters.†   (source)
  • Before each new venture he studied the field for a long time, then proceeded to act as if he had never heard of it, upsetting all precedent.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Sanborn learned that she had an ally in the contractor, and she broke social precedent to the extent of inviting him for tea.†   (source)
  • But he decided against it, because there was no precedent to follow under the circumstances: because Heller had paid him for his efforts, and the house had been actually designed by Roark; and because no one ever sued Austen Heller.†   (source)
  • But, Margaret, this mustn't be taken as a precedent.†   (source)
  • Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent.†   (source)
  • Suddenly, without precedent, Babbitt was not merely bored but admitting that he was bored.†   (source)
  • There are precedents, I may mention Schwarzenberg.†   (source)
  • It is not a convenient precedent at all.†   (source)
  • But Precedent and Precipitate together frightened all objection out of most people.†   (source)
  • Lym Cass looked alarmed, scratched himself, and protested, "I think it would be a bad precedent for the board-members to contribute money—uh—not that I mind, but it wouldn't be fair—establish precedent.†   (source)
  • Its reception into the Union was a precedent which may have far-reaching effects hereafter, when the Pole and the Tropics may hold alliance to the Stars and Stripes.†   (source)
  • There was no precedent.†   (source)
  • In spite of her sedentary habits such abrupt decisions were not without precedent in Zeena's history.†   (source)
  • I, for my pan, was never able to attain such clarity, although it was clear to me that anyone who found himself in a situation where he must ponder such matters would have to assume certain precedents, or indeed predecessors—though I did know that Director Behrens, who as you are perhaps aware is an amateur painter in oils, had in the course of a great many sittings produced a magnificent portrait of her, with a lifelike mastery of the skin that, just between us, certainly takes one aback.†   (source)
  • His own mind was divided, for a younger brother of his had been sent to Germany when he failed in some examination, thus creating a precedent but since he had there died of typhoid it was impossible to look upon the experiment as other than dangerous.†   (source)
  • In this unfashionable region Catherine the Great, always indifferent to precedent and thrifty of purse, had built herself in her youth a many-peaked and cross-beamed cottage-orne on a bit of cheap land overlooking the bay.†   (source)
  • Now for the Trenors, you remember, he chose the Corinthian: exuberant, but based on the best precedent.†   (source)
  • It was the builder's custom to pay at the end of three months, and there was no precedent between the two men for a cash settlement.†   (source)
  • He advocated, though he did not practise, the prohibition of alcohol; he praised, though he did not obey, the laws against motor-speeding; he paid his debts; he contributed to the church, the Red Cross, and the Y. M. C. A.; he followed the custom of his clan and cheated only as it was sanctified by precedent; and he never descended to trickery—though, as he explained to Paul Riesling: "Course I don't mean to say that every ad I write is literally true or that I always believe everything I say when I give some buyer a good strong selling-spiel.†   (source)
  • On her way home: "Now that I've made a precedent, joined the union and gone out on one strike and learned personal solidarity, I won't be so afraid.†   (source)
  • He could, on ten hours' notice, appear before the board of aldermen or the state legislature and prove, absolutely, with figures all in rows and with precedents from Poland and New Zealand, that the street-car company loved the Public and yearned over its employees; that all its stock was owned by Widows and Orphans; and that whatever it desired to do would benefit property-owners by increasing rental values, and help the poor by lowering rents.†   (source)
  • There was less opposition to this model than to the windows; for the settlers were fond of novelty, and their steeple was without a precedent.†   (source)
  • Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach.†   (source)
  • There's your law of precedents; there's your utility of traditions; there's the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in the air!†   (source)
  • Well, then it is a precedent for you for the future—though don't suppose I should venture to instruct you after the articles you publish about crime!†   (source)
  • Both cases are of a singular and special kind and it is very doubtful whether either can be considered as a precedent likely to be extensively followed by succeeding generations.†   (source)
  • Besides, there is a precedent.†   (source)
  • So that, however I may have occasion to rue my present audacity, I have at least the most respectable precedents in my favour.†   (source)
  • There was no want of precedent for his return; it was accounted for to the father in the usual way; and the collegians, with a better comprehension of the pious fraud than Tip, supported it loyally.†   (source)
  • —A most dangerous precedent indeed!†   (source)
  • But of Mr. Brooke I make a further remark perhaps less warranted by precedent—namely, that if he had foreknown his speech, it might not have made any great difference.†   (source)
  • It was observed that even medical families cannot escape the more insidious forms of disease, and that, after all, Dr. Sloper had lost other patients beside the two I have mentioned; which constituted an honourable precedent.†   (source)
  • {3}Invoking this precedent in aid of my prayer, I beseech the King to grant to me but this one grace and privilege—to my more than sufficient reward—and none other, to wit: that I and my heirs, for ever, may SIT in the presence of the Majesty of England!†   (source)
  • And therefore, guided by precedents, I must inform you that in practice cases of divorce may all be reduced to the following— there's no physical defect, I may assume, nor desertion?†   (source)
  • If he had hesitated for one instant to punish Oliver most severely, it must be quite clear to every experienced reader that he would have been, according to all precedents in disputes of matrimony established, a brute, an unnatural husband, an insulting creature, a base imitation of a man, and various other agreeable characters too numerous for recital within the limits of this chapter.†   (source)
  • It did occur to him that he could perhaps get some help by praying for it; but as the prayers he said every evening were forms learned by heart, he rather shrank from the novelty and irregularity of introducing an extempore passage on a topic of petition for which he was not aware of any precedent.†   (source)
  • But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried.†   (source)
  • She made this sacrifice as a matter of religious etiquette; as a thing necessary just now, but by no means to be wrested into a precedent; no, a week or two would limber up her piety, then she would be rational again, and the next two dollars that got left out in the cold would find a comforter—and she could name the comforter.†   (source)
  • The boldest theories of the human reason were put into practice by a community so humble that not a statesman condescended to attend to it; and a legislation without a precedent was produced offhand by the imagination of the citizens.†   (source)
  • Boldwood seized it and opened it, expecting another anonymous one—so greatly are people's ideas of probability a mere sense that precedent will repeat itself.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)