antecedency

plural antecedencies

1. countableuncountableAntecedence (various senses).

   Much of the antecedency of the movement had grown out of what one historian called “an errand of mercy” […]

   1976, Martin E[mil] Marty, chapter 4, in A Nation of Behavers, University of Chicago Press, page 97

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   […] for, vnity is before any multiplied number. Which antecedencie of Vnity, in the same place, he [Dionysius] applieth vnto the Deitie.

   a. 1621, Martin Fotherby, chapter 10, in Atheomastix, book 2, London, published 1622, page 308

   Most of thy reflections, particularly that, which respects the difference as to the joys to be given by the Virtuous and the Libertine of the sex, are fitter to come in as after-reflections, than as antecedencies.

   1748, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, volume 3, letter 75, London: for the author, pages 347–348

   The dependence of the Understanding on the representations of the Senses, and its consequent posteriority thereto, as contrasted with the independence and antecedency of Reason, are strikingly exemplified in the Ptolemaic System […] compared with the Newtonian […]

   1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, London: Taylor and Hessey, pages 227–228

   Synonyms: anteriority