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precede
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  • I motioned for him to precede me into the church.   (source)
    precede = go before
  • The word cryptic popped into Flora's head. It was preceded by the word unnecessarily. "Unnecessarily cryptic," said Flora out loud.   (source)
    preceded = led (something was before something else)
  • ...he said, and leaned back on the line to see if it was possible to gain any on his fish. But he could not and it stayed at  the hardness and water-drop shivering that preceded breaking.   (source)
    preceded = came before
  • In the preceding scene, I played Pinkerton, the womanizing cad, and my friend Marc from school ….   (source)
    preceding = previous
  • But at last with a great creaking and sighing he heaved up his enormous body, signed to the slaves to precede him with the lights, and went out.   (source)
    precede = go before
  • He wondered if he had been knocked unconscious, because he had only dim recollections of events immediately preceding the moment he had sat up, groaning, in the woods ten yards from the Land Cruiser.†   (source)
    preceding = prior (in time or space)
  • There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here.   (source)
    preceded = come before
  • They had studied Tennyson's poem in school the preceding winter, the Superintendent of Education having prescribed it in the English course for the Prince Edward Island schools.   (source)
    preceding = prior
  • It was your journal of the four months that preceded my creation.   (source)
    preceded = were before
  • I'll be last, or second to last since the girl tribute precedes the boy from each district.†   (source)
  • The festivities are preceded by weeks of preparation.†   (source)
  • But as he delved back into that paragraph's prose, the context seemed utterly unfamiliar; as did the paragraphs that immediately preceded it.†   (source)
  • An old and unpleasant odor preceded him.†   (source)
  • In the preceding minutes its whining had been rising in volume to a scream.†   (source)
  • The surreal whirlwind of the preceding weeks had left Walter devastated.†   (source)
  • No fall but preceded by a declination.†   (source)
  • A progression in which each term is equal to the sum of the two preceding terms.†   (source)
  • As long as I take it in the week, preceding the full moon, I keep my mind when I transform.... I'm able to curl up in my office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane again.†   (source)
  • The society pages always report on all the coming-out parties that precede the Cotillion ball—the mother-daughter luncheons, the barbecues, the lawn parties, the oyster roasts, and what have you.†   (source)
  • And the sudden, strange darkness that had preceded their arrival?†   (source)
  • It is hard to know whether an air of self-confidence precedes or follows success.†   (source)
  • The fourth question was preceded by a sober instruction: Imagine the White House wanted the unfiltered opinion of its constituents.†   (source)
  • The preceding night a fog as palpable as cotton had hung suspended over Island County.†   (source)
  • I felt another rush of jealousy, to think that Owen's concerns for my mother's first night underground had preceded my own.†   (source)
  • He was preceded by his stench, riper than the cheese and overpowering in the closed space.†   (source)
  • She still had to fight to establish herself as a fair justice-her history as a public defender preceded her into her courtroom, and prosecutors assumed she'd side with the defense.†   (source)
  • 5 always preceded her mom—even though she spent the whole day working around horses—and Spencer was certain she was allergic.†   (source)
  • He and I started back across the fields, preceding the others like two seigneurs.†   (source)
  • As on the preceding afternoon, the trouble lay in assembling the cast.†   (source)
  • This raw pleasure was worth all the worry that preceded it.†   (source)
  • He saw a family of turtles resting on a partially submerged log and watched as a heron broke for flight, skimming just above the water before vanishing into the silver twilight that preceded sunrise.†   (source)
  • The text went on to explain that these visions were a result of small strokes that often preceded death.†   (source)
  • The cake was the last thing to be done; everything else, all the food for a twenty-course meal and the appetizers that would precede it, was ready for the banquet.†   (source)
  • It preceded a voice that was equally hollow, reedy and insubstantial.†   (source)
  • Rachel preceded the two girls down the aisle to the family bench.†   (source)
  • He'd sat across from me in the armchair nearest the sofa and talked a lot, confusing stuff, although all that really stuck in my mind was the story he'd told of how he met my mother: massive snowstorm, no taxis in sight—when—preceded by a fan of wet snow—an occupied cab had plowed to the corner of Eighty-Fourth and Park.†   (source)
  • In response to the economic hardship of the Depression, families simply stopped having children, and as a result, the generation born during that decade was markedly smaller than both the generation that preceded it and the generation that immediately followed it.†   (source)
  • The platoon was preparing to move out, checking weapons, going through all the little rituals that preceded a day's march.†   (source)
  • I wondered whether the two little boys who had preceded them had been sold or sent to the fields.†   (source)
  • In minutes these shades fade, replaced by the pallor that precedes dusk.†   (source)
  • He also hoped to precede the rest of the cavalry and stake the first claim to the reward money.†   (source)
  • Each step I take becomes more of an effort than the one that preceded it.†   (source)
  • Adam looked down at a five-column headline that preceded a long news story.†   (source)
  • Chronicler relaxed slightly, obviously pleased to have his reputation precede him.†   (source)
  • He had told her each of the preceding days because he could not imagine lying to her then; it seemed the ultimate betrayal-of both Sarai and Rachel.†   (source)
  • Although PCP preceded the crack epidemic, it was enough to make blabbering idiots of once-vigorous boys and girls.†   (source)
  • Even he said no. Unfortunately, Marley's reputation preceded him.†   (source)
  • Even if you didn't know that, you knew from the structure of the preceding paragraph that it was coming.†   (source)
  • When the tray was loaded so heavily I could scarce lift it, Madam preceded me down the hall and waited by the closed door to the library.†   (source)
  • Since it precedes every experience, it is 'formal.'†   (source)
  • He didn't yet have an impressive highlight reel of game film to precede him, and the folks up in Munford apparently didn't read either the Memphis newspapers or Tom Lemming's newsletter.†   (source)
  • He opened his eyes and began to scan the preceding pages carefully.†   (source)
  • This building had taken the same name as the cinema that preceded it: both once had the same owner, and the cinema had been so famous as to have become a byword for that locality.†   (source)
  • Burned ashen ground that had been drenched by the rains that preceded the fire.†   (source)
  • Her arrival at Jackson Middle preceded the breakup of two well-established couples, as well as marking the beginnings of a reputation built more on speculation and wishful thinking than truth, which had followed her since.†   (source)
  • I understand that a School Committee hearing would precede that, but only as a formality.†   (source)
  • It seems they left town after four-thirty, since the truck that preceded them up the mountain clocked out of the local Public Works building at four thirty-five.†   (source)
  • This caused Rachel to quiver with pride and stroll about the house preceded by her pelvis in the manner of a high-fashion model.†   (source)
  • Burns's reputation as a hard man had preceded him.†   (source)
  • She tried to pull his hand away, but he was prepared for this sudden surge of muscle stimulation that always preceded stupor, and with great force clamped the cloth to her face.†   (source)
  • THE ZIATYS' STORY, as well as any, shows the extent to which modern refugees can trace their displacement to the mistakes, greed, fears, crimes, and foibles of men who long preceded them, sometimes by decades—or longer.†   (source)
  • The tramp of the feet grew louder, and I began to sense that one step preceded the other very sharply, the second dragging slowly across the earth.†   (source)
  • At dusk, when Pietro Crespi would arrive, preceded by a cool breath of lavender and always bringing a toy as a gift, his fiancee would receive the visitor in the main parlor with doors and windows open to be safe from any suspicion.†   (source)
  • Dale locks his fingers into his belt loops, a stance preceding the moment he used to kick my butt, or take my lunch money.†   (source)
  • In the preceding picture the window was closed.†   (source)
  • The door across from Paul banged open and an ugly lump of a man lurched through it preceded by a handful of weapons.†   (source)
  • In the days preceding the ball, if there were moments when Char and the balls weren't in my mind, they were when I was asleep.†   (source)
  • When their panting subsided, they continued through the low hills preceding Carvahall.†   (source)
  • I suppose I blew my stack from all the pressure I'd been under the preceding months.†   (source)
  • This was the one aspect of her life that had not changed in the years preceding.†   (source)
  • She sincerely wants to precede me.†   (source)
  • It began to pour out of him like the small weak trickle that precedes disaster in the mines.†   (source)
  • The preceding days had been a blur, Ben guiding her gently through choosing the music and the scriptures, the casket and the flowers, helping her write the obituary.†   (source)
  • They put her in a private room at the hospital, where she began to die with the same signs and symptoms that had preceded Sister M. E.'s death.†   (source)
  • Those were, Mr Charles recalls, strangely unnerving moments during which he too, despite not having participated in the preceding behaviour, felt engulfed with guilt.†   (source)
  • Anything from them was bigger and more wonderful than anything that preceded it.†   (source)
  • We had to await the exodus of the fifty-six blocks that preceded us.†   (source)
  • To prevent such outbursts, the authorities reversed the normal order of the prisoners preceding the judge into the courtroom.†   (source)
  • China is an important model because it was precisely its emancipation of girls that preceded and enabled its economic takeoff.†   (source)
  • Preceded in death by parents so-and-so; two surviving children, some grandchildren, et cetera.†   (source)
  • Unfortunately, Alex, your reputation precedes you.†   (source)
  • In the preceding seven years there hadn't been a time when he'd stood there without her.†   (source)
  • In the desert, sound often precedes sight.†   (source)
  • He stands, gestures for me to precede him back to the front of the store.†   (source)
  • There were also over a dozen nine-one-one calls on domestic abuse during that single week, more than previously had been reported in Hawkins Hollow in the six preceding months.†   (source)
  • On nine of the fifteen tests, the six correct answers are preceded by another identical string, 3-a-1-2, which includes three of four incorrect answers.†   (source)
  • In the silence that preceded the train's heave, she looked deeply at the folds of her mother's dress.†   (source)
  • He'd failed a few others over the preceding year.†   (source)
  • The stare she had just fixed on him fell outside their rules; it had nothing in common with the looks and gestures that usually preceded their lovemaking.†   (source)
  • In the early months of 1942, this is what preceded the unlawful evacuation and internment of 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry.†   (source)
  • The preceding months had seen extensive communications about the ban.†   (source)
  • Again she saw the cabin at home in that pitchy black which precedes the first leavening of dawn, and herself getting up to start early on the long walk.†   (source)
  • Gradually, the land sloped upward, leading us into foot-hills that preceded more severe mountains.†   (source)
  • He collected the money that had been taken in over the preceding months, heard reports from all the church groups and shook hands with the adults and kissed all small children.†   (source)
  • With all the activity of the preceding months, Max had not yet stopped to look at it.†   (source)
  • I do not believe that sport is the very essence of Southern life—I know God and work and family precede football, except perhaps on Alabama-Auburn game day—but what it really is, is the grandest of escapes from that life.†   (source)
  • To divert the enemy and drown out the noise of the work parties, Washington planned to precede the operation with night barrages of artillery fire from Roxbury, Cobble Hill, and Lechmere Point, where a number of the guns from Ticonderoga had been newly emplaced.†   (source)
  • He remembered also that the men, so hampered, would be unable to fall properly during the impressive fainting ceremony preceding the marching and that an inability to faint properly might affect the unit's rating as a whole.†   (source)
  • In Eriador they soon mingled with the other kinds that had preceded them, but being somewhat bolder and more adventurous, they were often found as leaders or chieftains among clans of Harfoots or Stoors.†   (source)
  • At expedition's end, Bishop had lost the tips of his little fingers, all of his toes, and none of his respect for the pioneers like Hillary who had preceded him to Everest's summit.†   (source)
  • The battleships the boys had seen anchored off Saipan that had preceded them by days to Iwo Jima reassured the Marines: enormous monsters capable of lobbing 2,600-pound shells the size and weight of large automobiles to smash the enemy's blockhouses.†   (source)
  • My reputation with girls at school preceded me like cheerleaders in front of a marching band.†   (source)
  • None that preceded his fall came to mind.†   (source)
  • Heed the words of the Caretakers who preceded you, whose wisdom can be found in the Geographica, for they have learned lessons you will need to learn yourself.†   (source)
  • Anys was so skilled with plants and balms that she knew how to extract their fragrant oils, and these she wore on herperson so that a light, pleasant scent, like summer fruits and flowers, always preceded her.†   (source)
  • Old Joshua's stamp remained upon us—Sunday school and Sunday service morning and evening, and on Wednesday night prayer meeting where the more fervent would stand to witness to the Lord's mercies of the preceding week and all the sick and straying would be held up in prayer before the Throne of Grace.†   (source)
  • He addressed no one without an obscenity preceding his name, a habit the patient found increasingly maddening.†   (source)
  • Was it a phrase that I had picked up from some preceding speaker, or a slip of the tongue?†   (source)
  • This expedition provokes the Rumanymasunsu famine, which takes over the preceding famines and sweeps across the region.†   (source)
  • JANE It isn't my preaching you have to worry about, it's the preaching of the missionaries who preceded you here.†   (source)
  • 'Dogmatic Freudians,' " Danny was imitating Professor Appleman —or so I assumed; I didn't know Professor Appleman, but Danny's voice had taken on a somewhat professorial quality—" 'Dogmatic Freudians are generally to be regarded as akin to the medieval physicists who preceded the era of Galileo.†   (source)
  • That long dark streak without any preceding cirrus clouds is a cold front.†   (source)
  • Should any of these heirs precede me in death, the deceased's share will go to her (or his) offspring.†   (source)
  • No railroad was mentioned by name in the speeches that preceded the voting.†   (source)
  • "Don't you?" he murmured and preceded her out of the car when the doors opened.†   (source)
  • They were not like the conquistadors who preceded them.†   (source)
  • Mr. Dubois was talking about the disorders that preceded the breakup of the North American republic, back in the XXth century.†   (source)
  • Maybe it was the kind of light that emanated from him, or the way his figure bent the light to a crucial incidence, but from any distance at all he appeared to me as though he were ascending an invisible ramp that magically preceded him.†   (source)
  • No thunder was ever as deep or as threatening, for thunder comes from above and is preceded by light.†   (source)
  • His own shadow preceded him, then fell behind, but again preceded him, flowed here into a pool of gloom and vanished like a soul into oblivion, only to swim into view three steps later.†   (source)
  • And a conversation in the present is given shape by the lifetime of events and ideas that preceded it.†   (source)
  • She can't even look at it without her mouth filling with the acrid saliva that precedes vomiting.†   (source)
  • What appears almost certain is that the decisions to prosecute and ultimately convict Socrates had a lot to do with the turbulent history of Athens in the several years preceding his trial.†   (source)
  • The fame of your regiment, sir, has preceded you.†   (source)
  • However, there wasn't time for the calm and mature reflections that must precede the formation of a wise and well-balanced government for free people.†   (source)
  • Who could believe, though, that in a few months she'd be like Janis, distinctly preceded wherever she went?†   (source)
  • Ten of my classmates had preceded me before I entered his room on the third division to encourage him to quit the Institute.†   (source)
  • But Gettysburg did not discourage Colonel E. Porter Alexander, Longstreet's chief of artillery, who won fame in that battle for directing the barrage that preceded Pickett's charge.†   (source)
  • They didn't have to torture; their reputation preceded them.†   (source)
  • Kate preceded him down a hall and into her room.†   (source)
  • And all the other pairs of words —red, bus, stoplight, boring—just threw up a mass of confusing images, making it impossible for me to sort out something as logical as saying: "A sunset precedes nightfall" is the same as "a chill precedes a fever."†   (source)
  • He appears, crosses the stage preceded by Lucky†   (source)
  • All that-preceded us.†   (source)
  • Certain things, it is made clear, will not be spoken aloud; certain events will not be shown onstage; though it is difficult to imagine, given the excesses of the preceding acts, what these things could possibly be.†   (source)
  • Although once as numerous as the plains buffalo, they had shown a catastrophic decrease during the three or four decades preceding my trip to the Barrens.†   (source)
  • Already nothing looked the same because it was going to end, because he was going to leave it, and the thought filled him with a twinge of sudden anguish and the little, unexpected fear that precedes any big change, sad or joyous.†   (source)
  • And weirdly often now with me the feeling is that they are staring at us—that in some quite palpable way they precede us.†   (source)
  • The fragrance of his pipe tobacco preceded him, reassuring me.†   (source)
  • KATE smiles again, ANNIE smiles back, and they precede JAMES offstage†   (source)
  • Will you precede me and explain things, so that he will not be afraid when I come in?†   (source)
  • Above them the milky-white flower had beckoned from the rocks and Krystyna, preceding her up a dizzying path, had called back, "Zosia, I'll bring it down!"†   (source)
  • His exits, when they were preceded by a little speech, could be dramatic; but his entrances were usually modest.†   (source)
  • And it kills me, I mean it's the weirdest thing sometimes the way they precede the idea with some kind of phrase.†   (source)
  • This was the one mandatory, essential act that must precede the terrible decision to use the weapons.†   (source)
  • For in his tribal timetable he had only arrived at the stage of walking alone: the stage immediately preceding the proving-of-manhood: the stage of the walkabout.†   (source)
  • But despite all the whiskey in him, he has not escaped, and he looks as he appeared at the close of the preceding act, a sad, defeated old man, possessed by hopeless resignation.†   (source)
  • (Preceded by JAILER he limps across the stage; he has aged and is pale, but his manner, though wary, is relaxed; while that of the Commission is bored, tense, and jumpy) NORFOLK (Looks at him) A seat for the prisoner†   (source)
  • Biting his knuckle until he drew blood, he went over to the window; the same slanting rain was pouring down as on the two preceding days.†   (source)
  • Her hand on the doorknob, she turned off the light and preceded him into the kitchen.†   (source)
  • During the critical month preceding Webster's speech, six Southern states, each to secede ten years later, approved the aims of the Nashville Convention and appointed delegates.†   (source)
  • Carlson stepped back to let Slim precede him, and then the two of them went out the door.   (source)
    precede = go before
  • one of the hens, had laid an egg the preceding day.   (source)
    preceding = prior (the day that came before this)
  • This day was passed in the same routine as that which preceded it.   (source)
    preceded = was before
  • She had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of her dabbling in the spring on the preceding evening;   (source)
    preceding = prior
  • One was of snuffy colored gingham which Marilla had been tempted to buy from a peddler the preceding summer because it looked so serviceable;   (source)
  • In the preceding February he had resigned his charge and departed amid the regrets of his people, most of whom had the affection born of long intercourse for their good old minister in spite of his shortcomings as an orator.   (source)
  • If Marilla, in going down to Mrs. Lynde's that evening, was actuated by any motive save her avowed one of returning the quilting frames she had borrowed the preceding winter, it was an amiable weakness shared by most of the Avonlea people.   (source)
  • The cows swung placidly down the lane, and Anne followed them dreamily, repeating aloud the battle canto from MARMION—which had also been part of their English course the preceding winter and which Miss Stacy had made them learn off by heart—and exulting in its rushing lines and the clash of spears in its imagery.   (source)
  • He is now much recovered from his illness and is continually on the deck, apparently watching for the sledge that preceded his own.   (source)
    preceded = was in front of
  • I had been awake the whole of the preceding night, my nerves were agitated, and my eyes inflamed by watching and misery.   (source)
    preceding = prior (the most recent to pass)
  • I trembled excessively; I could not endure to think of, and far less to allude to, the occurrences of the preceding night.   (source)
    preceding = prior
  • I was undisturbed by thoughts which during the preceding year had pressed upon me, notwithstanding my endeavours to throw them off, with an invincible burden.   (source)
  • The horrible scene of the preceding day was forever acting before my eyes; the females were flying and the enraged Felix tearing me from his father's feet.   (source)
  • It was echoed from Saleve, the Juras, and the Alps of Savoy; vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire; then for an instant every thing seemed of a pitchy darkness, until the eye recovered itself from the preceding flash.   (source)
    preceding = having just passed
  • There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators—there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe.   (source)
    preceding = who have gone before
  • They are simply late for the fellowship preceding conclave.†   (source)
  • Theresa had called him more than usual in the preceding two weeks.†   (source)
  • The reputations of the Taiwanese preceded them to Everest.†   (source)
  • He was possessed of that cold, cruel sense of purpose that preceded murder.†   (source)
  • Just "running out of fuel, sir" at the end of a sentence, preceded by the mitigating "ah."†   (source)
  • A warm dense fog had settled over the paddies and there was the stillness that precedes rain.†   (source)
  • Crack was different from the drugs that preceded it.†   (source)
  • The reputation of a bone crusher that had preceded The Elephant had no basis.†   (source)
  • Every spiritual metamorphosis is preceded by a physical one.†   (source)
  • IT WAS COLD and it rained for the two weeks preceding our Christmas program.†   (source)
  • I would say he cut his hand on the night he died, and in the hour or two just preceding his death.†   (source)
  • He had begun it, he said, the preceding winter—to be exact, on December 3, 1894.†   (source)
  • It was exactly like the preceding generation—but in reverse.†   (source)
  • And that dreadful night was preceded by a dreadful evening.†   (source)
  • The most recent first....and then those which preceded it...†   (source)
  • Somewhere, a mockingjay gives the warning whistle that precedes the hovercraft.†   (source)
  • You don't know whether the wound to the head preceded death or not?†   (source)
  • The situation again became as tense as it had been during the months that preceded the first war.†   (source)
  • Tension saturated the air, that almost tangible, sickly calm that often preceded a fight.†   (source)
  • The lord commander had preceded her through the ice, accompanied by Bowen Marsh and twenty spearmen.†   (source)
  • The fifth corridor proved no more fruitful for Arya than the preceding four.†   (source)
  • Ser Barristan Selmy had preceded Jaime as Lord Commander.†   (source)
  • We needed to stay as consistent as possible with the others—those decoys—that preceded you.†   (source)
  • As usual, the smell of Wild Turkey preceded Daddy.†   (source)
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