pride of place

noun

The highest-ranking or first position; place of honor.

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Meanings

nounpride of place (uncountable)
  1. uncountableThe highest-ranking or first position; place of honor.

    On Tuesday last / A falcon towering in her pride of place / Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.

    c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]
    2 more examples

    For the Imhoffs, moreover, as for most northern collectors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Dürer holds pride of place, being represented by a complete collection of his prints and probably the largest group of his drawings gathered anywhere.

    1993, Joseph Leo Koerner, The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art, page 46

    Agnew's triadic postulate is not in itself very controversial, but there have been sharp disagreements over which ingredient(s) of place should be given pride of place.

    2001, Lawrence Buell, Writing for an Endangered World, page 60
  2. uncountableHonor; esteem.

    The participant shares pride of place with the events themselves in our minds as we read Virgil's text.

    1998, Michael C. J. Putnam, Virgil's Epic Designs: Ekphrasis in the Aeneid, page 34
    1 more example

    Europe at the start of the 1990s was abuzz with organizational concepts and visions, and among these none had as much pride of place as the notion of "confederation."

    1991, David G. Haglund, Alliance within the alliance?, page 67
  3. uncountablePride concerning a place, as one's home town or residence.

    It's smaller than I'd expected, and without much pride of place.

    2012, Benjamin Taylor, Naples Declared: A Walk Around the Bay
    1 more example

    The Yankee has much pride of place, believing himself the citizen of no mean city. In the heart of the Commonwealth this pride is conspicuous, and Mr. Hoar was proud of the city and county of Worcester.

    1908, Francis Cabot Lowell with Henry Pickering Walcott and Ezra Ripley Thayer, Sons of the Puritans: a group of brief biographies, page 3
Cite this entry
APA

pride of place. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pride%20of%20place

MLA

“pride of place.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pride%20of%20place. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pride of place,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pride%20of%20place.

Source: pride of place on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.