Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Preponderate   Listen
Preponderate

verb
(past & past part. preponderated; pres. part. preponderating)
1.
Weigh more heavily.  Synonyms: outbalance, outweigh, overbalance.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Preponderate" Quotes from Famous Books



... that Mr. Hughes was Bryan plus the advantages, which Mr. Bryan never enjoyed, of a correct Republican upbringing and a mind. The Republican upbringing and the mind have come of late years to preponderate. Looking at Mr. Hughes to-day, you could not tell him from a Republican, except perhaps by his mind, though such esoteric Republicans as Brandegee, Cabot Lodge, and Knox profess an ability ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... temperance of the Romans. The right of accusation was confined to the magistrates. A vote of the thirty-five tribes could inflict a fine; but the cognizance of all capital crimes was reserved by a fundamental law to the assembly of the centuries, in which the weight of influence and property was sure to preponderate. Repeated proclamations and adjournments were interposed to allow time for prejudice and resentment to subside: the whole proceeding might be annulled by a seasonable omen or the opposition of a tribune; and such popular trials were commonly less formidable to innocence than they were favorable ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... carrying the war into Ise and thus leaving his own territory unguarded. But the affair had taught the superiority of offensive tactics, and thus Nobunaga's impulse was to attack the army of Imagawa, instead of waiting to be crushed by preponderate force. His most trusted generals, Shibata Katsuiye, Sakuma Nobumori, and Hayashi Mitsukatsu, strenuously opposed this plan. They saw no prospect whatever of success in assuming the offensive against strength so superior, and they urged ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... considerable number, although still a minority, of recent species, intermixed with some fossils common to the preceding, or Eocene, epoch. We then arrive at the Pliocene strata, in which species now contemporary with man begin to preponderate, and in the newest of which nine-tenths of the fossils agree with species still inhabiting the neighbouring sea. It is in the Post-Tertiary strata, where all the shells agree with species now living, that we have discovered the first or earliest ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... not always suffice to counteract the working of the so-called law of diminishing returns, which insures, with agricultural science in a given state of advancement, smaller products per capita when there are more men on a given area. That this influence should preponderate over that of improved processes requires that population should increase with a degree of rapidity which may ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... travelers the savage and the half-civilized seemed to me to preponderate; this not to say that they were so much coarse and crude as they were fierce, absorbed, self-centered. Each man depended upon himself and needed to do so. The crew on the decks were relics from keel-boat days, surly and ugly of temper. The captain ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... should the vote of the Negro be so especially a bugbear? It is because the Negro is the game which our political sportsman is in full chase of, and determined to hunt down at any cost. Granted, however, for the sake of argument, that black voters should preponderate at any election, what then? We are gravely told by this latter-day Balaam that "If the whites are to combine, so will the blacks," but he does not say ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... thousands, you approximate a perfect accuracy within less than the two thousandth part of a dollar; an atom in money which every one would neglect. Against this single inconvenience, the other advantages of the dollar are more than sufficient to preponderate. This Unit will present to the people a new coin, and whether they endeavor to estimate its value by comparing it with a Pound, or with a Dollar, the Units they now possess, they will find the fraction very compound, and of course less accommodated to their comprehension ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... of Rienzi are sufficiently visible, and I have not unsparingly shewn them; but we must judge men, not according as they approach perfection, but according as their good or bad qualities preponderate—their talents or their weaknesses—the benefits they effected, the evil they wrought. For a man who rose to so great a power, Rienzi's faults were singularly few—crimes he committed none. He is almost the only man who ever rose from the rank of a ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... mind, after reading both sides of the question, is, that the arguments are altogether in favor of Vertot, while the greater weight of probabilities is in the opposite scale. I shall leave you, however, to poise the balance, and I shall not attempt to cause either end of the beam to preponderate, by acting the part of Old Nick as before exhibited to you; though I decidedly believe that Gaguin had some authority for his tale, but, by neglecting to quote it, he has left the minds of his readers to uncertainty, and his own ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... mischief of habituating children to bow to the unmeaning is so great that I would face any inconvenience in order to get rid of it. All kinds of objections, some of them of great weight, may be urged against me, but the question is on which side do they preponderate? Is it no objection to our present system that the simple laws most necessary to society should be grounded on something which is unintelligible, that we should be brought up in ignorance of any valid obligation to obey ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... peculiarity being accompanied by other modifications of bodily structure having relation to aerial locomotion. Thus, in direct contrast to all other mammals, in which locomotion is chiefly effected by action from behind, and the hind-limbs consequently greatly preponderate in size over the fore, in the Chiroptera the fore-limbs, being the agents in propelling the body forward during flight, immensely exceed the short and weak hinder extremities. The thorax, giving origin to the great muscles which sustain flight, and containing ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... restaurant at the top which is open for a few days before and after a festa, but generally closed; it was open now, so we went in to dry ourselves. We found rather a roughish lot assembled, and imagined the smuggling element to preponderate over the religious, but nothing could be better than the way in which they treated us. There was one gentleman, however, who was no smuggler, but who had lived many years in London and had now settled down at Rovenna, ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... and loathe the injustice with which others are treated. Most of the best Radicals I have known were men of gentle birth and breeding. Not all: others, just as earnest, just as eager, just as chivalrous, sprang from the masses. Yet the gently-reared preponderate. It is a common Tory taunt to say that the battle is one between the Haves and the Have-nots. That is by no means true. It is between the selfish Haves, on one side, and the unselfish Haves, who wish to see something ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... seems an easy thing to adhere to truth; but it is too frequently found difficult in practice. When motives of interest are balanced against motives of duty, it is well if the former do not sometimes preponderate. Are we always careful to state facts exactly as they exist; to avoid all false colouring; to swear even to our own hurt? If so, we need not fear investigation, because nothing can be detected but ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... knowledge in mixing it to the taste. The selection of ingredients should of course be made, according to what they are wanted for, observing that of the most pungent, the smallest quantity should be used. No one flavour should greatly preponderate; yet if several dishes be served the same day, there should be a marked variety in the taste of the forcemeat, as well as of the gravies. It should be consistent enough to cut with a knife, but neither dry nor heavy. The following are the articles of which forcemeat may be made, without giving ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... power, the general government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state governments, and these will have the same disposition towards the general government. The people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress. How wise will it be in them by cherishing the union to preserve to themselves an advantage which can never be too ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... "Which shall preponderate it is partly in our power to determine. He who follows the path of duty steadfastly, cannot be wholly miserable, whatever misfortunes may come upon him. He will be sustained by the conviction that his own errors have ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... whilst amongst the inland lakes, which are few in number and importance, that of Balta Alba, in the district of Romnicu Sarat, possesses strong mineral properties, in which chloride of sodium and carbonate and sulphate of soda preponderate. Its waters are used for baths, and are said to cure certain forms of scrofula, rheumatism, neuralgia, and other germane maladies. Besides Balta Alba, Roumania possesses several other sources of ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... dynasties, is per se a thing far more probable than one ruled by one and the same dynasty for more than thirteen centuries. And therefore, if the historical evidence in the two cases is at all equal—or rather, if that which supports the more improbable account does not greatly preponderate—we ought to give credence to the more moderate and probable of the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... at the end of your career! The judgment of heaven is committed to my hands, but mercy reigns in my heart: act in such a manner, that my heart may preponderate; for I am a man whom ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland

... various nationalities; and the latter are the majority. But look closer still and you notice another distinction: some wear the ring which denotes that they are free, while others are slaves; and the latter preponderate. Here and there among the Gentile members there is one with the regular features of the born Greek, perhaps shaded with the pale thoughtfulness of the philosopher or distinguished with the self-confidence of wealth; but not ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... rapier, much against my inclination; but, for all the arguments, threats, and promises that he could use, I would not consent to send a challenge to my brother by his mouth. There was one argument only that he made use of which had some weight with me, but yet it would not preponderate. He told me my brother was gone to a notorious and scandalous habitation of women, and that, if I left him to himself for ever so short a space longer, it might embitter his state through ages to come. This was a trying concern to me; but I resisted it, and ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... contradicted him, and asserted, that all his beauties are regular, but no reason is assigned by either of these mighty geniuses in support of their opinions, and the reader is left in the dark, as to the real truth. If he is to be guided by the authority of a name only, no doubt the argument will preponderate in favour of our countryman. The French lady then proceeds to answer some observations, which Mr. Pope made upon her Remarks on the Iliad, which she performs with a warmth that generally attends writers of her sex. Mr. Pope, however, paid more regard to this fair antagonist, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... can arise among us, from the republican form of government, from this day to the day of judgment, could be put into a scale against what this country suffers from its monarchical form in a week, or England in a month, the latter would preponderate. Consider the contents of the Red book in England, or the Almanac royale of France, and say what a people gain by monarchy. No race of kings has ever presented above one man of common sense in twenty generations. The best ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... is now before the judgment-seat. It has, as was expected, its adversaries and supporters. Which will preponderate is yet to be decided. The former more than probably will be most active, as the major part of them will, it is to be feared, be governed by sinister and self-important motives, to which everything in their ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... of forty million people, whom she can't feed and is less and less able to find work for. Do you call that a resource? I call it an impediment—a penalty. It's something to exploit, for the immediate profit in it, something to bargain with; but even as a market it can't preponderate always, and I can't see why it should make such ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... conspiracy is directed, that on getting word of it, and before taking any steps to punish it, they endeavour, as far as they can, to ascertain its character, and after carefully weighing the strength of the conspirators with their own, on finding it preponderate, never suffer their knowledge of the plot to appear until they are ready with a force sufficient to crush it. For otherwise, to disclose their knowledge will only give the signal for their destruction. They must strive therefore to seem unconscious ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... of the representation." [9] An example will make this statement clear. Take a town with 13,000 Liberal and 12,000 Conservative electors and divide it into five districts of 5000 electors each. If there is a section of the town in which the Liberals largely preponderate—and it often happens that the strength of one or other of the parties is concentrated in a particular area—the net result of the election in five districts will depend upon the way in which the boundary lines are drawn. The possible results of two different distributions ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... to observe that almost all the woolly-headed people are also long-headed; while among the straight-haired nations broad heads preponderate, and only two stocks, the Esquimaux and the Australians, ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... distinctions in the ends of towns, sir:—the ends of integrity are always uniform: and 'tis only where those ends are most promoted, that the inhabitants of a town, let them live east or west, most preponderate in rational estimation. ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman

... as Monsieur Rollin has lately and justly determined; whence we are not always to depend on the authority of Herodotus, where it is unsupported by other evidence, but ought to compare the other evidence with his, and if it preponderate, to prefer it before his. I do not mean by this that Herodotus willfully related what he believed to be false, [as Cteeias seems to have done,] but that he often wanted evidence, and sometimes preferred what was marvelous to what was best ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus

... the balance preponderate to the life-side for a certain length of time, and then go ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward

... otherwise, of having native establishments near a populous European settlement, is a much more comprehensive question, and one which might admit, perhaps, of some reasons on both sides, although, upon the whole, those against it greatly preponderate. ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... not only of the cities, but often of the provinces, through its influence in the estates. Industry and wealth had produced their natural results. The supreme authority of the sovereign and the power of the nobles were balanced by the municipal principle which had even begun to preponderate over both. All three exercised a constant and salutary check upon each other. Commerce had converted slaves into freemen, freemen into burghers, and the burghers were acquiring daily, a larger practical hold upon the government. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... however, were by no means the chief motive of the Jesuits in founding their journal, and the controversial character began soon to preponderate in their articles. Protestant writers received but little mercy in the pages of the "Journal de Trevoux," and the battle was soon raging in every country of Europe between the flying batteries of the Jesuits and the strongholds of Jansenism, of Protestantism, or of liberal thought ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... supposing him to be unsuccessful, I may by this means receive from him a superior degree of satisfaction. In the same manner the success of a partner rejoices me, but then his misfortunes afflict me in an equal proportion; and it is easy to imagine, that the latter sentiment may in many cases preponderate. But whether the fortune of a rival or partner be good or bad, I always hate the former and love ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... be the appearance on either side, the question is, whether the imputation of the trait, which is now under our consideration, be founded in fact. What circumstances make in favour of it? What circumstances make against it? And which of these preponderate ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... succeeded, would have secured the place it desired by reducing to a precarious state the life of my own country, made me feel that, while we must do all we could to extend our friendships so as to convert and bring in Germany, the chances of success did not preponderate sufficiently to justify relaxation of either vigilance in preparation or resolution in policy. My feeling remained what I had tried to express in the address delivered at Oxford in August of 1911. "I wish," I said then, "all our politicians who concern ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane

... twenty-eight knots; of the three middle-class cruisers, twenty-two to twenty-four knots; and of the light cruisers, twenty-five to twenty-six knots. In size, in armament, in speed, the British squadron would decidedly preponderate. Admiral Sturdee, however, though confident of victory, was determined to take no risks, and to minimize loss in men and material by making full use of his superior long-range gunfire, and of his superior speed. He would wait, screened by the land, until the Germans had drawn nearer. Everything ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... equal, and no decided current will pass from it, through the galvanometer, to earth. This is the neutral point. But if we imagine the idle pole to be as at Fig. 13, b, then the positively electrified molecules greatly preponderate over the negative molecules, and positive electricity is shown. If the idle pole is now shifted, as shown at Fig. 13, c, the negative molecules preponderate, and the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... energy of constitution, yet it has a certain sphere of normal action which is essential to the harmony of mind and body. If this region is largely developed, the constitution is languid, inefficient, sensitive, and abnormally disposed. But if it be deficient, the volitive energies preponderate, and there is a lack of those susceptibilities of constitution, which prevent excessive waste. The cerebral faculties are Fear, Anxiety, Sensibility, Servility, Relaxation, and Melancholy, and their excessive predominance indicates a weak, vacillating, irresolute ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... no less pleased with the honour and honesty of his self-accusation. He began now to form in his mind the same opinion of this young fellow, which, we hope, our reader may have conceived. And in balancing his faults with his perfections, the latter seemed rather to preponderate. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... twice at the Episcopal church, where the service was beautifully read and sung; but in a city in which men preponderate the congregation was mainly composed of women, who fluttered their fans in a truly distracting way. Except for the church-going there were few perceptible signs of Sunday in Denver, which was full of rowdies from ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... argue with you: I would gladly hear one who could, but you again more gladly. I should think unworthily of you if I thought you capable of yielding or receding. I do not even ask you to keep our conversation long a secret, so greatly does it preponderate in your favour; so much more of gentleness, of eloquence, and of argument. I came hither with one soldier, avoiding the cities, and sleeping at the villa of a confidential friend. To-night I sleep in yours, and, if your dinner does ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... moral and religious questions which you are considering. And in these lectures I shall take for granted, what some scientists still doubt, that man also is a product of evolution. For the weight of evidence in favor of this view is constantly increasing, and seems already to strongly preponderate. Also I wish in these lectures to grant all that the most ardent evolutionist can possibly claim. Not that I would lower man's position, but I have a continually increasing respect for the so-called ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... against the strong, and will keep all for any length of time in their relative situations, and the whole in peace; excepting there should be one power, which, either by the superiority of its strength, its military system, or its resources, shall preponderate, and ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... you have got up to two hundred lines a lesson, why do you go back again to one hundred and twenty, and one hundred and twenty-five? You should strive never to diminish; but I suppose that vis inertia, which is often so troublesome to you, does some times preponderate. So it is now and then ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... without motives, except upon the supposition of a Supreme Being to give effect and influence to the practical laws: in such a case we should be bound to obey our conceptions, which, although objectively insufficient, do, according to the standard of reason, preponderate over and are superior to any claims that may be advanced from any other quarter. The equilibrium of doubt would in this case be destroyed by a practical addition; indeed, Reason would be compelled to condemn herself, if she refused to comply with the demands of the judgement, no superior ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... act, between a desire of doing good, and a fear of encouraging evil, she weighed each side hastily, but while still uncertain which ought to preponderate, her kindness for Mrs. Harrel interfered, and, in the hope of rescuing her husband from further bad practices, she said she would postpone her own business for the few days he mentioned, rather than see him compelled to open any new account with so ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... Begin with the line of his native interests, and offer him objects that have some immediate connection with these. The kindergarten methods, the object-teaching routine, the blackboard and manual-training work,—all recognize this feature. Schools in which these methods preponderate are schools where discipline is easy, and where the voice of the master claiming order and attention in threatening tones ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... is as healthy as any other western state, can be abundantly supported by facts. Let a candid observer compare the health of the early settlers of New England, with that of the early settlers of the West, and he will find the scale to preponderate in favor of the latter. Unless there is some strange fatality attending Illinois, its population must be more healthy than the early settlers of a timbered region. But in no period of its history ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... mis-education as it is to maim our own limbs or stupefy our understanding. Our humanity is an awful and divine gift; our business is to educate it throughout—God alone must judge which part of it shall preponderate over the rest. But in the last generation— and, alas! in this also—little or no proper care has been taken of the love for all which is romantic, marvellous, heroic, which exists in every ingenuous child. Schoolboys, indeed, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... especially French modistes and perruquiers. The charges of the former are exorbitant, the latter are little employed except by gentlemen. There are also many Spanish shops, some German, and a few English; but I think the French preponderate. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... fight." Hedgehogs will certainly destroy young birds; but we must remember to set the good any animal does against the harm, and strike the balance; and, as I said, I suspect in this case the good will largely preponderate. Hedgehogs are extremely fond of beetles; they seize on them with great earnestness, and crack them with as much delight as you lads crack nuts. Hedgehogs are sometimes kept in houses for the purpose of eating the cockroaches so often abounding in ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton

... Malays the condition is just the reverse. Their total number in the Bulungan district is perhaps only one-tenth that of Dayaks, but with them women preponderate and there are many children. Such is the case in the rest of Dutch Borneo, and is one reason why the Malays ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... position but that again and again he was afraid? He stiffened himself under this consciousness as if it had been a tax levied by a tyrant. He hadn't at any time proposed to himself to live long enough for fear to preponderate in his life. Such was simply the advantage it had actually got of him. He was afraid for instance that an advance to his distinguished friend might prove for him somehow a pledge or a committal. He was afraid of it as ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... myself, and all that I could reveal to the most intimate friend. The motives of action or silence are now equally balanced; nor can I pronounce, in my most secret thoughts, on which side the scale will preponderate. I cannot dissemble that six quartos must have tried, and may have exhausted, the indulgence of the Public; that, in the repetition of similar attempts, a successful Author has much more to lose than he can hope to gain; that I am now descending into the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... librate; equal, counterpoise, counteract, counterbalance, countervail; adjust, equalize, square. Antonyms: unbalance, derange, preponderate. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... parties—nothing else. When parties are evenly balanced states tremble. In good government there should be somewhere sufficient power to carry on, not unexamined, but at least with vigour, the different operations of government itself. In free countries, therefore, one party ought to preponderate sufficiently over the other. If it do not—all the state measures are crippled, delayed, distorted, and the state languishes while the doctors dispute as to the medicines to be applied to it. You will find by your Bill, not that the Tories are destroyed, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton



Words linked to "Preponderate" :   preponderant, rule, reign, preponderance, dominate, predominate, prevail



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com