prejacent, a. (n.)
(priːˈdʒeɪsənt)
[a. OF. prejacent (15th c. in Godef.), ad. L. præjacēnt-em, pr. pple. of præjacēre to lie in front, f. præ, pre- A. 4 + jacēre to lie.]
† 1. Previously existing; pre-existent. Obs.
| 1546 Langley Pol. Verg. De Invent. i. i. 2 Thales..said that God was an understandinge that made..all thynges of the water as matter prejacent. 1596 Bell Surv. Popery i. i. i. 1 Without any antecedent or prejacent matter. 1676 T. Garencières Corals 46 Without any prejacent or evident cause. a 1703 Burkitt On N.T. Heb. xi. 3 The world was made, not out of any pre-jacent or pre-existent matter, but out of nothing. |
2. Logic. Laid down previously; constituting the original proposition from which another is inferred. Hence ellipt. as n. rare.
| c 1840 Sir W. Hamilton Logic App. (1860) II. 276 According to the doctrine of the logicians, conversion applies only to the naked terms themselves:—the subject and predicate of the prejacent interchange places, but the quantity by which each was therein affected is excluded from the movement; remaining to affect its correlative in the subjacent proposition. |
3. Lying or situated in front. rare.
| 1762 tr. Busching's Syst. Geog. V. 5 With respect to its situation on the side of France, this Circle is reckoned among the four anterior and six prejacent Circles of the Empire. |