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Primacy   Listen
noun
Primacy  n.  
1.
The state or condition of being prime or first, as in time, place, rank, etc., hence, excellency; supremacy. (R.)
2.
The office, rank, or character of a primate; the chief ecclesiastical station or dignity in a national church; the office or dignity of an archbishop; as, the primacy of England.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Primacy" Quotes from Famous Books



... shall take your word? A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain, Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust So much as for a feather: [TO SUBTLE.] and you, too, Will give the cause, forsooth! you will insult, And claim a primacy in the divisions! You must be chief! as if you only had The powder to project with, and the work Were not begun out of equality? The venture tripartite? all things in common? Without priority? 'Sdeath! ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... due account of his Italian origin, or to recognize that he was only half French, and that this half was his superficial half. At the bottom of his soul, though not perhaps at the bottom of his heart, he was Italian, and of the great race which in every science and every art seems to win the primacy when it will. The French, through the rhetoric of Napoleon III., imposed themselves on the imagination of the world as the representatives of the Latin race, but they are the least and the last of the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... saints' reliques, holy water, consecrated salt, wax, &c.; to be sure to fast on Sundays, and eat flesh on Fridays; not to confess their sins, whatsoever they do, especially to a priest; to separate from the Catholic church, and despise his vicar's primacy; to attend the devill's nocturnal conventicles, sabbaths, and sacrifices; to take him for their god, worship, invoke, and obey him; to devote their children to him, and to labour all that they may to bring others into ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various

... mean time, from this hurricane of disorder rises the clear ideal of the national genius. Italy becomes self-conscious and attains the spiritual primacy of modern Europe. Art, Learning, Literature, State-craft, Philosophy, Science build a sacred and inviolable city of the soul amid the tumult of seven thousand revolutions, the dust and crash of falling cities, the tramplings of recurrent invasions, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... prevented this consummation, and instead distributed the surplus to paupers and the holders of government bonds through the medium of taxes. There was no doubt of English wealth and progress. England held the primacy of the world in commerce, in manufactures, in agriculture. Her rapid increase in wealth had enabled her to bear the burden, not only of her own part in the Napoleonic wars, but of much of the expense of the armament of the continental ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... posts he was destined to be a spectator of the two great conflicts by which Bismarck established the union of North Germany and its primacy in Europe. Morier detested the means by which this end was achieved, but he had consistently maintained that this union ought to be, and could only be, achieved by Prussia, and he remained true to his beliefs. It is a great tribute to his intellectual ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... at least an approximation to ascribe the primacy of realism to Courbet, though ascriptions of the kind are at best approximations. Not only was he the first, or among the first, to feel the interest and importance of the actual world as it is and for what it is rather than ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell

... the youngest son of Lord Vernon. He became Bishop of Carlisle in 1791. He was a member of the Queen's Council during George III.'s incapacity, and one of the first members of the Ecclesiastical Commission (1835). During his primacy there were two fires in the minster, and he gave largely to the restoration fund. In 1838 he declined the renewal of the Harcourt peerage. He ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock

... which they lived was the one now called San Juan de Bagongbayan, outside the walls of the city of Manila. It was established with the title of San Nicolas de Tolentino, which is still preserved (without administration), with the veneration merited, not only by their primacy but by the miraculous image of Nuestra Senora de la Salud [i.e., "our Lady of health"] who is venerated there. Later, a convent was erected in due form under the ancient advocacy of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, that saint being today the titular of that most strict province. In that convent, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... before and not discovered the least foly. They ware informed that he was once a doctor in the colledge of Sorbonne, and that to much study had reduced him to that. It would appear he hes studied to profundly Peters primacy above the rest of ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... of a close personal connection with the canine tooth, the disorder known as hydrophobia has long held an undisputed primacy. The existence of dus ailment is attested by so many witnesses, many of whom, belonging to the profession of medicine, speak with a certain authority, that even the breeders and lovers of snap-dogs ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... measure the orthodox doctors of the Sorbonne.[379] He informed them, with a very sober face, that the king's religious belief differed little from that expressed in Melanchthon's "Common Places." His theologians had never been able to convince him that the Pope's primacy was of divine right. Nor had they proved to his satisfaction the existence of purgatory, which, being the source of their lucrative masses and legacies, they prized as their very life and blood. He was inclined ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... thus accepted. It has been insisted that objects of every description are chosen only as they arouse some feeling; and that those which promise pleasant feeling are sought and those which entail pain are avoided. The general recognition of the primacy of pleasure and pain over our other feelings, over the specific emotions mentioned above, is indicated by the fact that ethical writers of eminence sometimes make pleasure and pain synonymous with feeling in general, passing over other feelings, as though it were not important ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... Walpole, in which Butler accepted the preferment, showed that the slight was felt and resented. Two years later, however, the bishop was presented to the rich deanery of St Paul's, and in 1746 was made clerk of the closet to the king. In 1747 the primacy was offered to Butler, who, it is said, declined it, on the ground that "it was too late for him to try to support a falling church." The story has not the best authority, and though the desponding tone of some of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... of Western Christendom assumed a new character. But the primacy, in one form or another, had for centuries belonged to the Roman See. So much his remote predecessors had achieved, and their success is all the more remarkable when we remember how few of them had ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... woman. To these he brought all the inventive technique and capacity for organized action which he had developed in his hunting and fighting life, with the result that he became the master of woman in a new sense. Not suddenly, but in the course of time, he usurped her primacy in the industrial pursuits, and through his organization of industry and the application of invention to the industrial processes became a creator of wealth on a scale before unknown. Gradually also he began to rely not altogether on ornament, ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... combined with a geographical position which separates them by a distinct line from other countries, and, perhaps more than every thing else, the possession of a common name, which makes them all glory in the past achievements in arts, arms, politics, religious primacy, science, and literature, of any who share the same designation, give rise to an amount of national feeling in the population which, though still imperfect, has been sufficient to produce the great events now passing ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... which established the independent state of Vatican City and granted Roman Catholicism special status in Italy. In 1984, a concordat between the Holy See and Italy modified certain of the earlier treaty provisions, including the primacy of Roman Catholicism as the Italian state religion. Present concerns of the Holy See include religious freedom, international development, the Middle East, terrorism, interreligious dialogue and reconciliation, and the application of church doctrine in an era of rapid change ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... status; position, position in society; order, degree, baccalaureate, locus standi[Lat], caste, condition. greatness &c. adj.; eminence; height &c. 206; importance &c. 642; preeminence, supereminence; high mightiness, primacy; top of the ladder, top of the tree. elevation; ascent &c. 305; superaltation[obs3], exaltation; dignification[obs3], aggrandizement. dedication, consecration, enthronement, canonization, celebration, enshrinement, glorification. hero, man of mark, great card, celebrity, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... of a dozen centuries. From the age of Charlemagne to the last of the Bonapartes is a long stride down the ages; but there was never a time in all these years when men might make reckonings in the arithmetic of European politics without taking into account the prestige, the power, and even the primacy of France. There were times without number when France among her neighbours made herself hated with an undying hate; there were times, again, when she rallied them to her side in friendship and admiration. There were epochs in which her hegemony passed ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... is man's fault if he allows anything to come between himself and the Heavenly Father. Surely, nothing is more to be desired than the unclouded vision. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," is the first of the Commandments brought down from Sinai and its primacy is endorsed by the Saviour: the sixth Beatitude expresses the same supreme requirement. No false gods, not even self—the most popular of all the false gods—must be permitted to come ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan

... The primacy of Ra is illustrated by the fact that Amon was identified with him. Amon, originally the local god of Thebes,[1253] became great in the South as Ra became great in the North, rising with the growth of the Theban kingdom. His hold on the people, and particularly (as was natural) on the priests, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... worth while to run the eye briefly through these paragraphs, which might be headed thus—Resume of telegraphic intelligence; short account of Dr. Benson, whose appointment to the Primacy is announced by telegram; short account of the distribution of prizes at the Bordeaux Exhibition; announcement of the arrival of the P. and 0. mail at Albany, and of its departure from Melbourne the previous day; short account of the ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... scientific knowledge of use in navigation was largely monopolized by Arabs and Jews, it seems strange that the isolated and hitherto insignificant country of Portugal should have taken, and for a century or more maintained primacy in the great epoch of geographical discovery. The fact is explained, not so much by her proximity to the African coast and the outlying islands in the Atlantic, as by the energetic and well-directed patronage which Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) extended ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... one judge, the Conditions absolutely entitle the Devil to the Honour of making the Contract, viz. That Phocas first murthering his Master (the Emperor) and his Sons, Boniface should countenance the Treason, and declare him Emperor; and in Return, Phocas should acknowledge the Primacy of the Church of Rome, and declare Boniface universal Bishop. A blessed Compact! which at once set the Devil at the Head of Affairs in the Christian World, as well Spiritual as Temporal, Ecclesiastick ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... contend that they were kings indeed but of some chance city. Not so, but even as their family holds highest honour in their fatherland, so too is their city the most glorious in Hellas, whereby they hold, not primacy over the second best, but ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon

... numberless castes in the land there are divisions and subdivisions galore. And while the Sudras acknowledge the supremacy of the "twice born," among the myriad clans of the Sudras themselves there is endless assumption and contention, every one, fomented by pride, claiming primacy and distinction above the others. Recently, in South India, this feeling led to a serious riot, in which not a few lives were ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... was conditioned on accepting the Apology as well as the Augustana. Both were also subscribed to in the Wittenberg Concord of 1536. (C. R. 3, 76.) In 1537, at Smalcald, the Apology (together with the Augustana and the Appendix Concerning the Primacy of the Pope) was, by order of the Evangelical estates, subscribed by all of the theologians present, and thereby solemnly declared a confession of the Lutheran Church. In 1539 Denmark reckoned the Apology ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... while postponed. Some feeble attempts were even made to recover the Church property, but too many people's interests were concerned for much to be done in that direction. Dowdal, Archbishop of Armagh, who had been deprived, was restored to his primacy. Archbishop Brown and the other conforming bishops were deprived. So also were all married clergy, of whom there seem to have been but few; otherwise there was no great difference. As far as the right of exercising her supremacy was concerned, Mary relished ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... these three sweet girls, who, though they had played with him and been all womanhood to him ever since he came out of petticoats, had not a grain of jealousy of the unseen sister who had come suddenly past them and stepped into the primacy of ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... successful in unifying its organization. In part it shared the destiny of the Roman empire, and with it fell into two parts, East separating from West. Indeed the East never really acknowledged the Roman primacy nor shared in its development, and it still remains apart. With characteristic oriental conservatism it claims the title of "Orthodox," and retains the creed and organization of the early Church. In general its conception of the relation of the world to the super-world ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... sympathy of thought and action between the Huguenots of France and their co-religionists in Holland. They were all believers alike in Calvinism—a sect inimical not less to temporal monarchies than to the sovereign primacy of the Church—and the tendency and purposes of the French rebels were already sufficiently manifest in their efforts, by means of the so-called cities of security, to erect a state within a state; to introduce, in short, a Dutch republic ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... ministry of that Church, but in 1714 he decided to enter the Church of England, and went to Oxf. After holding various other preferments he became rector of the rich living of Stanhope, Bishop of Bristol (1738), and Bishop of Durham (1750), and was said to have refused the Primacy. In 1726 he pub. Fifteen Sermons, and in 1736 The Analogy of Religion. These two books are among the most powerful and original contributions to ethics and theology which have ever been made. They depend for their effect entirely upon the force of their ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... relegated to the past as savoring of the primness of the ancient dame school or female seminary, are really minor or sometimes major morals. They can express everything in the whole range of the impulsive or emotional life. Now that we understand the primacy of movement over feeling, we can appreciate what a school of bearing and repose in daily converse with others means. I would revive some of the ancient casuistry of details, but less the rules of the drawing-room, call and party, although these should not be neglected, than the deeper expressions ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall



Words linked to "Primacy" :   grandness, importance



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