noun · academic
precedent
/ˈprɛsɪdənt/PRE·ce·dent
an earlier event or action that is regarded as an example or guide to be considered in subsequent similar circumstances
Examples
“The court relied on a legal precedent when making its decision.”
“There is no precedent for dealing with such a complicated disaster.”
“In academic writing, authors often refer to precedents in the literature to justify their approach.”
Band 8 sentence
“The committee decided to adopt the policy because there was an established precedent in neighbouring institutions.”
Collocations
- set a precedent
- legal precedent
- establish a precedent
Word family
Common mistakes
use 'previous' instead of 'precedent' in legal/academic contexts→precedent
There is no precedent to do that.→There is no precedent for doing that / There is no precedent to handle that
Say it for a higher band
5previous→6earlier→7+precedent
Synonyms
example
model
Easily confused
previous
“The previous study examined a different sample and cannot be used as a precedent.”
Related words
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In Sublist 8
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