paramountcy

English

Etymology

paramount +‎ -cy

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpaɹəmaʊn(t)si/

Noun

paramountcy (countable and uncountable, plural paramountcies)

1. The fact or condition of being paramount; supremacy, precedence. [from 17th c.]
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience […] ‎^[1], London: Folio Society, published 2008, page 228:

     we saw this permanence to be true of the general paramountcy of the higher insight, even though in the ebbs of emotional excitement meaner motives might temporarily prevail […] .

   • 1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society, published 2010, page 203:

     Both, they claim, were British spies, sent into Central Asia as part of a grand design for paramountcy there at the expense of Russia, whose influence they aimed to destroy.

   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 703:

     Portuguese Church authorities often made things more difficult for non-Portuguese European missionaries by insisting on the paramountcy of their own culture and ecclesiastical jurisdiction [...].