From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishprecedencepre‧ce‧dence /ˈpresɪdəns/ AWL noun [uncountable] IMPORTANTwhen someone or something is considered to be more important than someone or something else, and therefore comes first or must be dealt with first SYN priorityprecedence over Do we want a society where appearance takes precedence over skill or virtue? Guests were seated in order of precedence. Safety must be given precedence.
Examples from the Corpus
precedence• This possibility of precedence confusion can be dealt with as follows.• If not, should precedence be given to new inputs or to the accumulated current state?• Ultimately, the democratic process may take precedence over democracy itself.• If the total resources are insufficient to meet all needs then how does one choose the needs that should take precedence?• Where the two aims were in conflict, the former was to take precedence.• California law allows residents to carry the spray, and city officials said state law would take precedence.• But for those most concerned, other issues have taken precedence.• The biological fact of her femininity took precedence over serious critical evaluations of her work.given precedence• A decision obviously had to be made as to which of these missions should be given precedence.• Even in the home the male is given precedence in many obvious and subtle ways. 