Today, president familiarly refers to a head of a country or organization. Those spelling variants have since fallen into disuse. John Milton, A Soveraigne Salve To Cure The Blind, 1643 1711īy such a provision a dangerous president is introduced. Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York, letter, 13 Nov. This was never done by the Parliament here, much less ought the Assembly to assume the power of Disposing of such stores as had been sent over by Her Majesty, which is such a presumption as is unpresidented in any other Assembly in America, and therefore the Council were very much in the right not to agree to the same. Sir Richard Cocks, diary, 15 April 1701 Mr Boyle said that was not regular nor presidented. In early use, unprecedented and precedented were sometimes written using the base word president, and precedence and precedent were also sometimes written as presidence and president. Both unprecedented and precedented appear in the English language in the 17th century. More commonly, something said to be "without precedent" is unprecedented. When something contradicts an established precedent or prevailing custom or practice, it is said to "break with precedent" or "go against precedent." Another common collocation is "without precedent" in reference to something not supported by a prior example or ruling. On the other hand, the noun precedent is frequently used in the phrase "to set a precedent," meaning "to set an example or rule to be followed." The word is often used in legal contexts, where it denotes a judicial decision that should be followed by a judge when deciding a later similar case. Family matters can be said to "take/have precedence" over one's job, for instance or a piece of legislation might "give precedence" to big business. Specifically, it came to denote priority of importance, or the superiority of rank at a ceremonial or formal social gathering-for example, guests at a banquet might be introduced or seated "in order of precedence." Idiomatically, precedence is often used with the verbs take, have, or give. Perhaps partly influenced by French précédence, meaning "priority" or "pre-eminence," English precedence began being used in the late 1500s in senses relating to order and rank. Knowing what words are arranged with each homophone is useful in making sure you're choosing the right one. It's suspected that precedence may have come about as an error for the plural of the earlier noun precedent, meaning "something done or said that serves as an example or rule." In modern use, however, each word has distinct meaning, and each is often found in distinct collocations. Originally, this wasn't an issue because the words were used synonymously. Allow us to set a precedent on dealing with them.