All 3 Uses of
prejudice
in
Utopia, by Thomas More
- There are also, without their towns, places appointed near some running water for killing their beasts and for washing away their filth, which is done by their slaves; for they suffer none of their citizens to kill their cattle, because they think that pity and good-nature, which are among the best of those affections that are born with us, are much impaired by the butchering of animals; nor do they suffer anything that is foul or unclean to be brought within their towns, lest the air should be infected by ill-smells, which might prejudice their health.†
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- Upon this they infer that no man ought to seek his own conveniences so eagerly as to prejudice others; and therefore they think that not only all agreements between private persons ought to be observed, but likewise that all those laws ought to be kept which either a good prince has published in due form, or to which a people that is neither oppressed with tyranny nor circumvented by fraud has consented, for distributing those conveniences of life which afford us all our pleasures.†
- And supposing that only one religion was really true, and the rest false, he imagined that the native force of truth would at last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the strength of argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind;†
unprejudiced = not with an unreasonable belief that prevents unbiased considerationstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unprejudiced means not and reverses the meaning of prejudiced. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
Definitions:
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(1)
(prejudice) bias that prevents objective consideration -- especially an unreasonable belief that is unfair to members of a race, religion, or other group
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(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
law: In legal use, prejudice can mean harm or to cause harm. Additionally, it has a very specific meaning when seen in the form without prejudice or with prejudice. Without prejudice means that a lawsuit or proceeding ended without legal conclusions. In a civil case, that means a case could be re-filed in the future as though the proceeding never happened. With prejudice means the lawsuit or proceeding was dismissed and cannot be re-filed by the plaintiff with the same claim.