Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use precedent in a sentence

35 example sentences · noun, adjective, verb

Precedent means an act in the past which may be used as an example to help decide the outcome of similar instances in the future. Example: “He added a long litany of peripheral precedents which the judge dismissed as mere makeweights.”

Examples of precedent by meaning

nounThe aforementioned (thing).

  • A third argument may be derived from the precedent., New York 2001, p.74

More sentences with precedent

  • He added a long litany of peripheral precedents which the judge dismissed as mere makeweights.From the entry makeweight
  • Ferguson “separate but equal” doctrine wasn’t a frontal assault that dynamited precedent.2021 July 29, Harry Litman, “Column: Mississippi’s abortion brief dynamites standing law and ‘super duper’ precedents”, in The Los Angeles…. From the entry dynamite
  • Or, has America long since adapted, even if disagreeably, to the precedents?2021, Lyle Denniston: The abortion rights reckoning, in: Lyle Denniston Law News, November 24 2021. From the entry disagreeably
  • What one finds there instead is wikilawyering — cryptic, acronym-laden debate invoking protocol and precedent.2007, Bidoun: A Quarterly Forum for Middle Eastern Talent. From the entry wikilawyering
  • There are precedents here: you do not have to look any further than Golmud itself.2006 August, Michael Buckley, Tibet (Bradt Travel Guides), 2nd edition, Globe Pequot Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 17. From the entry Golmud
  • Surely it had no precedent in the world of welfare wonkdom.2003, Eric Alterman, What liberal media?. From the entry wonkdom
  • They resolved to copy a Tudor precedent and to proceed against him by bill of attainder.1920, Francis Charles Montague, The History of England, from the Accession of James I to the Restoration, page 1663. From the entry bill of attainder
  • Cleveland’s victory set the precedent for a two-term, nonconsecutive presidency, and until today, his was the only success story.2024 November 6, Ali Watkins, “Trump Is Not the First President to Come Back From Defeat”, in The New York Times, archived from the…. From the entry nonconsecutive
  • European Union is legalistic, bureaucratic and runs by precedent.2017 December 8, Steven Erlanger, “Brexit Talks Headed for a Second, More Difficult Phase”, in The New York Times. From the entry bureaucratic
  • It is hard to think of any precedent for such a calamitous display of insensitivity, historical ignorance and uncomprehending political stupidity.2017 August 20, “The Observer view on Donald Trump’s presidency”, in The Observer. From the entry death wish
  • While padding and quilting were historically employed in traditionally male-dominated areas like militarywear, they also have a precedent in female clothing.2014, Gemma Williams, “Voluminous Armour”, in Disegno, number 7, page 98. From the entry militarywear
  • Although headshaping does have Late Aceramic Neolithic precedents on Cyprus, there is no evidence for this practice during the Chalcolithic.2013, A. Bernard Knapp, The Archaeology of Cyprus, page 274. From the entry headshaping
  • There is no lack of precedent for such disturbances.2002, Deirdre Chetham, Before the Deluge: The Vanishing World of the Yangtze's Three Gorges, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL…. From the entry Zhong
  • 'I am bound by precedent,' said the First Lord, turning a vast glabrous expressionless face from Harte to Sir Joseph.1973, Patrick O’Brian, chapter 1, in HMS Surprise, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, published 2002, →ISBN, page 2. From the entry glabrous
  • He'd tied him up with references and precedents.1972, Brian Glanville, The Financiers, page 128. From the entry blind with science
  • A prototype 75-foot piggyback flatcar was built, establishing the precedent for today's standard car with a capacity for two road trailers.1960 November, David Morgan, “"Piggyback"—U.S. success story”, in Trains Illustrated, pages 681–682. From the entry piggyback
  • But we can see in the citation of cases and precedents the influence of the new school of lawyer chancellors.1923, W[illiam] S[earle] Holdsworth, “English Law in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries (Continued): Developments outside the…. From the entry chancellor
  • "There's hardly a lack of precedent for maybe addressing pandemic issues outside of the WHO," he said, speaking to NPR before the announcement was made.2025 January 20, Gabrielle Emanuel, “Trump declares U.S. will withdraw from the World Health Organization”, in w: NPR. From the entry GAVI
  • How is it that this platform took two years after the super-straight movement to protect its creators and set precedent on their own beliefs?2022 November 1, Saba S., “Queeries: A rant about inclusivity on TikTok”, in The Tufts Daily, archived from the original on 11 Nov 2022. From the entry super straight
  • The relevant statute, the presumption of judicial review, and our precedent all point toward allowing, not forbidding, inventors their day in court.2020, Thryv, Inc., FKA Dex Media, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies, LP, et al. (U.S. Supreme Court No. 18–916), Justice Gorsuch dissenting. From the entry be one thing
  • Yet these precedents offer no more than a slender reed for Gordon Brown, almost hopelessly down in the polls, to cling to.2009 September 28, Jeremy Warner, “Governments can survive recessions, but not in this case”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 17 Aug 2015. From the entry slender reed
  • They can take heart, however, from the precedents: foot binding and widow burning, once widespread in China and India, respectively, have been abolished.2003, Suzanne LaFont, Constructing Sexualities: Readings in Sexuality, Gender, and Culture, Prentice Hall, →ISBN, page 131. From the entry anti-circumcisionist
  • We have precedent for two opposite social attitudes toward second families, as they were called before legal second families through sequential marriage became so fashionable.1984, Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Rearing Perfect Children. From the entry second family
  • The only aspect of the pedantics that changed was the type of precedents mentioned in terms of development problems and their solutions.1983, Girma Negash, Language and Politics: A Comparative Analysis of Revolutionary Rhetoric of Regime Leaders and Power Contenders in…. From the entry pedantics
  • This deoligarchization was one of the fundamental conditions precedent for agricultural modernization and for growing mobility and commercialization of land, labour and capital.1982, Economics: A Biannual Collection of Recent German Contributions to the Field of Economic Science, Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg…. From the entry deoligarchization
  • Reti's explanation that interversion is sometimes responsible for thematic unity, while without academic precedent, is based upon an acute perception of musical structure.1963, Alan Walker, A Study in Musical Analysis, page 74. From the entry interversion
  • Thomas’s opinion also overturns previous supreme court rulings, in an abrogation of the court’s own adherence to the principle of stare decisis — that is, being faithful to precedent.2022 May 23, Ed Pilkington, “Supreme court guts lifeline for prisoners who claim wrongful convictions”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian…. From the entry stare decisis
  • The first decision in a decision stream does not survive as a precedent unless the original decision is validated by its outcome and by the outcomes of subsequent decisions.2016, Diane Vaughan, The Challenger Launch Decision, page 247. From the entry decision stream
  • Franciscan attitudes in the Canaries offered possible precedents for what Europe now came to call ‘the New World’, or, through a somewhat tangled chain of circumstances, ‘America’.2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 691. From the entry America
  • Fettretch quoted various case studies and precedents to argue that a person of subintelligence can make a valid bargain and can comprehend the nature of a will.2003, Tanis C. Thorne, The World's Richest Indian, page 134. From the entry subintelligence
  • Amazon clearly wants to address Kindle Unlimited cheating: Their new guideline update follows an April arbitration case in which book stuffing was mentioned, setting a legal precedent against the practice.2018 June 25, Adam Rowe, “Amazon's New Rules Against Book Stuffing Scams Aren't Satisfying Authors”, in Forbes, archived from the original…. From the entry book stuffing
  • The problem with these precedents is that the Security Council did not authorize intervention in Syria, and an intervention there will thus harm, not help, the Council’s credibility and effectiveness.2013 August 31, Jack L. Goldsmith, “What Happened to the Rule of Law?”, in The New York Times. From the entry effectiveness
  • In short, although the temptation is great to look to legislation and regulation as a remedy to cyberhate, our commitment to free speech must always take precedent over our fears.2004, Deanna D. Sellnow, Confident public speaking, page 23. From the entry cyberhate
  • The Act is of constitutional interest mainly because there was no recent precedent for such provision having to be made for an heiress-presumptive, and for her husband, upon their marriage.1949 autumn, J[ohn] A[rkas] Hawgood, “The British Constitution in 1948”, in Stephen King-Hall, Sydney D[awson] Bailey, editors…. From the entry heiress-presumptive

Meaning of precedent

  1. noun An act in the past which may be used as an example to help decide the outcome of similar instances in the future.
  2. noun A decided case which is cited or used as an example to justify a judgment in a subsequent case.
  3. noun An established habit or custom.

Full definition of precedent

Questions about precedent in a sentence

How do you use precedent in a sentence?
Precedent is used as a noun, adjective and verb. For example: “He added a long litany of peripheral precedents which the judge dismissed as mere makeweights.”
What is a short sentence with precedent?
“He'd tied him up with references and precedents.”
What does precedent mean?
Precedent means an act in the past which may be used as an example to help decide the outcome of similar instances in the future.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: precedent (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 precedent in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/precedent. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.