Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use precedence in a sentence

13 example sentences · noun

Precedence means the state of preceding in importance or priority. Example: “Family takes precedence over work, in an emergency.”

Examples of precedence by meaning

nounThe state of preceding in importance or priority.

  • Family takes precedence over work, in an emergency.
  • The details of precedence were never officially determined.1922, Sinclair Lewis, “Chapter VI - III”, in Babbitt, New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., pages 74–75
  • he saw to my twelve packages on one hand while on the other he dealt with the Emir of the Sea, the harbour master, who in a green gown and yellow turban, was demanding precedence of some sort.1936, Freya Stark, chapter II, in The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut, New York: Dutton, page 28

nounPrecedent.

  • Verses of probably no literary value, but illustrating a kind of rhythm, a melodic innovation that you will not find in Chaucer, though there is ample precedence in Provence1934, Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading, London: Faber & Faber, published 1991, page 142
  • Psychiatrists, in such circumstances, may have followed the precedence of their spiritual forebears—religious confessors—in respecting the privacy of their patients.2004, Paul Jackson, chapter 3, in One of the Boys: Homosexuality in the Military during World War II, Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's...
  • Such a compulsion has no precedence.2004, Intelligent Systems, translated by Nintendo of America, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Nintendo, GameCube, level/area: X-Naut...

More sentences with precedence

  • One may use a fixity declaration in Haskell to describe an operator's precedence and direction of associativity.From the entry fixity
  • Improper use can cause misnesting, operator precedence problems, duplication of side effects, and other problems.2013, Keith Lee, Pro Objective-C, page 88. From the entry misnest
  • The order of entries is alphabetical with performance names, where evident, taking precedence over gentilicians.1996, Margaret E. Molloy, Libanius and the Dancers, Hildesheim; Zürich; New York: Olms-Weidmann, →ISBN, page 309. From the entry gentilician
  • Second, the standard domain-specific notation you're recreating in your Perl class must conform to the Perlish precedences and associativities.2005, Damian Conway, Perl Best Practices. From the entry Perlish
  • Is it now the children who take precedence, and anyhow, why are leatherdykes, drag queens, radical faeries, and motorcycle dykes offensive on any level?2008, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, page 103. From the entry leatherdyke
  • If there is a break in the line of life at the same position as what could be a backup marriage line, the health lines take precedence.2001, Rita Robinson, Discover Yourself Through Palm Reading, →ISBN. From the entry marriage line
  • They know that the reboarding process will cast them in with the crowd of new passengers, since all must board together — reboarders receive no precedence.1983, W. Boyd Littrell, Gideon Sjoberg, Louis A. Zurcher, Bureaucracy as a social problem, page 209. From the entry reboarder

Meaning of precedence

  1. noun The state of preceding in importance or priority.
  2. noun Precedent.

Full definition of precedence

Questions about precedence in a sentence

How do you use precedence in a sentence?
Precedence is used as a noun. For example: “Family takes precedence over work, in an emergency.”
What is a short sentence with precedence?
“Such a compulsion has no precedence.”
What does precedence mean?
Precedence means the state of preceding in importance or priority.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: precedence (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use precedence in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/precedence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.