Chapter Princock to Private of P by Webster's Dictionary (1913 Edition)

Conventical

, or Conventual, prior, a prior who is at the head of his own house. See the Note under Priory. — Claustral prior, an official next in rank to the abbot in a monastery; prior of the cloisters.

Priorate
(Pri"or*ate) n. [LL. prioratus: cf. F. priorat.] The dignity, office, or government, of a prior. T. Warton.

Prioress
(Pri"or*ess), n. [OF. prioresse.] A lady superior of a priory of nuns, and next in dignity to an abbess.

Priority
(Pri*or"i*ty) n. [Cf. F. priorité. See Prior, a.]

1. The quality or state of being prior or antecedent in time, or of preceding something else; as, priority of application.

2. Precedence; superior rank. Shak.

Priority of debts, a superior claim to payment, or a claim to payment before others.

Syn. — Antecedence; precedence; preëminence.

Priorly
(Pri"or*ly) adv. Previously. [R.] Geddes.

Priorship
(Pri"or*ship), n. The state or office of prior; priorate.

Priory
(Pri"o*ry) n.; pl. Priories [Cf. LL. prioria. See Prior, n.] A religious house presided over by a prior or prioress; — sometimes an offshoot of, an subordinate to, an abbey, and called also cell, and obedience. See Cell, 2.

Of such houses there were two sorts: one where the prior was chosen by the inmates, and governed as independently as an abbot in an abbey; the other where the priory was subordinate to an abbey, and the prior was placed or displaced at the will of the abbot.

Alien priory, a small religious house dependent on a large monastery in some other country.

Syn. — See Cloister.

Pris
(Pris) n. See Price, and 1st Prize. [Obs.]

Prisage
(Pris"age) n. [OF. prisage a praising, valuing, taxing; cf. LL. prisagium prisage; or from F. prise a taking, capture, prize. See Prize.] (O. Eng. Law) (a) A right belonging to the crown of England, of taking two tuns of wine from every ship importing twenty tuns or more, — one before and one behind the mast. By charter of Edward I. butlerage was substituted for this. Blackstone. (b) The share of merchandise taken as lawful prize at sea which belongs to the king or admiral.

Priscillianist
(Pris*cil"lian*ist) n. (Eccl. Hist.) A follower of Priscillian, bishop of Avila in Spain, in the fourth century, who mixed various elements of Gnosticism and Manicheism with Christianity.

Prise
(Prise) n. An enterprise. [Obs.] Spenser.

Prise
(Prise), n. & v. See Prize, n., 5. Also Prize, v. t.

Priser
(Pris"er) n. See 1st Prizer. [Obs.]

Prism
(Prism) n. [L. prisma, Gr. pri`sma, fr. pri`zein, pri`ein, to saw: cf. F. prisme.]

1. (Geom.) A solid whose bases or ends are any similar, equal, and parallel plane figures, and whose sides are parallelograms.