preceptory (pre sept or i)

and n. [ II . n .; pl. pre cep torics (-riz). A subordinate religious house where instruction was given. Preceptories were establishments of the Knights Templars, the superiors of which were called preceptors, or knights preceptors. All the preceptories of a province were subject to a provincial superior, three of whom held rank above all the rest, viz., those of Jerusalem, Tripolis, and Antioch. The establishments of the order [Templars], which bore the name of preceptories , to the number of twenty-three, were at first seized by the King and other lords, but afterwards, by a bull from the Pope and an Act of Parliament, transferred to the rival order of the Hospitallers. R. W. Dixon , Hist. Church of Eng., v. preceptre (pre-sep'tres), п. [ pre cerebellar (pre-ser-ē-bel'är), a. [L. præ, before, + cerebellum, cerebellum: see cerebel lar.] Anterior or superior with respect to the cerebellum: noting the superior cerebellar ar pre cerebral (pre-ser'ē-bral), a. [L. præ, before, + cerebrum, brain: see cerebral.] Anterior with respect to the cerebrum: noting the anterior cerebral artery. 2. In law : ( a ) A command or mandate in writ-tery. ing i ued by a court or judge, as for bringing a person, record, or other matter before him, or for the collection of costs, etc., or for summon- ing jurors, etc. ( b ) In English law, a command or mandate in writing i ued pursuant to law by an administrative officer: as, a sheriff's precept for a municipal election. The legates of Pope Leo did take in dudgeon this preferment of Dioscorus, and would not sit down in the synod, because the prece ion was not given to their Holy See. Barrow , The Pope's Supremacy, p. 197. 3. In philol., a weakening of a vowel due to a change of accent; a change from a full strong vowel to a thinner one: opposed to progre ion. March, Anglo-Saxon Gram., p. 26. Lunisolar prece ion. lunisolar. - Prece ion of the equinoxes, in astron., a slow retrograde motion of the equinoctial points, viz. from east to west, or contrary to the order of the signs. The equinoctial points do not retain the same position in the heavens, but have a slow retrograde motion, at the rate of about 50."24 in a year, or about a degree in 71.66 years, the equator moving on the ecliptic while the ecliptic retains its position nearly unchanged among the stars. This phenomenon is caused by the combined action of the sun and moon on the ma of matter accumulated about the earth's equator, and is called the prece ion of the equinoxes because it makes the equinoxes succeed each other in le time than they would otherwise do. In consequence of the prece ion of the equinoxes, the longitudes of the heavenly bodies are continually increasing, the latitudes remaining unchanged. The right ascensions and declinations are, of course, both changing. The prece ion of the equinoxes was discovered by Hipparch us more than a century before the Christian era. The equinoctial points will make an entire revolution in about 25,800 years. prece ional (pre-sesh'on-al), a. [ force. preces sort (pre-ses'or), n. [= It. preces sore, Fordham was herein more court-like and civil to this Eudo than Thomas Arundel, his Prece our , Bishop of Ely. Fuller, Hist. Camb., iii. 62. ( Davies .) prechet, ". A Middle English form of preach. pre chordal (pre-kôr'dal), a. [L. præ, before, + chorda, In what we may call præ - chordal times. IMG:content-0817.png:[blocks in formation]