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preeminent

UK/pɹiːˈɛmɪnənt/US/priˈɛm ə nənt/
adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,111 of 15,258leans written

Preeminent means standing above all others in a field. The preeminent scholar, preeminent among them, remains preeminent.

It is stronger than leading and claims a gap rather than a lead. It is written with a hyphen as pre-eminent in British use, which is one of the few places the hyphen has survived.

Definitions of preeminent

  1. 1adjectivepreeminentStanding above all others in a field.C2

    “She is the preeminent expert on ancient Egyptian writing.”

preeminent is a quality.

Also accepted in games: pre-eminent

Where it comes from

Latin praeeminere means to stand out, from prae, before, plus eminere, to project.

  1. Latin

    praeēminēns

  2. Middle French

    preeminent

  3. English, today

    preeminent

Built from

  • praeēmineō · Latin — to stand out, excel
  • prae- · Latin — pre-

Middle French preeminent and its source, Latin praeēminēns, present participle of praeēmineō (“to stand out, excel”), from prae- (“pre-”) + ēmineō.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

preeminent in the wild

  • Department of Education as the preeminent public education department for Massachusetts.

    Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

  • The Mission become preeminent international organization in Croatia after the departure of UNTAES forces from the Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia.

    OSCE Mission to Croatia

  • By 1996, The Washington Post described PC Data as "the preeminent tabulator of facts and figures of the monthly sales of consumer software in the United States".

    PC Data

  • Vaughn has also worked with other preeminent artists such as the Brothers Johnson, Patti LaBelle, Jennifer Holliday, Troop and Terrace Martin.

    Wayne Vaughn

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.