preponderate

English

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.

Etymology

From Latin praeponderatus, past participle of praeponderāre ‎(“to outweigh”)

Verb

preponderate ‎(third-person singular simple present preponderates, present participle preponderating, simple past and past participle preponderated)

1. (transitive) To outweigh; to overpower by weight; to exceed in weight; to overbalance.
   • Glanvill

     An inconsiderable weight, by distance from the centre of the balance, will preponderate greater magnitudes.

2. (transitive) To overpower by stronger or moral power.
   • 1898, William Graham Sumner, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain”, in War and Other Essays, Yale, page 359:

     That is the preponderating consideration to which everything else has to yield.

3. (transitive, obsolete) To cause to prefer; to incline; to decide.
   • Fuller

     The desire to spare Christian blood preponderates him for peace.

4. (intransitive) To exceed in weight; hence, to predominate
   • 1861, John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism^[1]:

     […] if the principle of utility is good for anything, it must be good for weighing these conflicting utilities against one another, and marking out the region within which one or the other preponderates.

Related terms

• preponder
• preponderance
• preponderant

References

• preponderate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• preponderate in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911