▪ I. paramount, a. (n.)
(ˈpærəmaʊnt)
Also 6–7 pera-, 7 pere-.
[a. AF. paramont, peramont above (in place, order, or degree), f. OF. par by + amont, à mont adv., up, above (of motion or position):— L. ad montem to the mount or hill. In AFr. paramont had the simple sense ‘above’, e.g. in local position, on a page, or in a book:
1381 Gower Mirour 10017 Il fist le mariage Jadis du Siecle a son lignage Comme je vous contay paramont.]
A. adj.
1. Above in a scale of rank or authority; superior. a. In lord paramount, lord superior; overlord; spec. the supreme lord of a fee, from whom other feudatories hold, but who himself holds from none; hence transf. one who exercises supreme power or jurisdiction. So lady paramount, a woman in supreme authority; also transf. the lady who has made the highest score in an archery tournament.
| [1339 Year-Bk. 13 Edw. III, Trin. (Rolls) 307 La mort le chef seigneur paramont nest rien a vous. a 1481 Littleton Tenures ii. §19 (1516) A iij, Autielx seruices come le donnour fait a son seignur prochaine a luy paramont [tr. 1544, etc., Such seruices as y⊇ donour doth vnto his lord next aboue]. 1528 J. Perkins Profitable Booke v. §430 Mes si en mesme le case le seignur paramont relees tout son droit en le tenancye al heire, par cest releas le menalte est determine [tr. 1642, p. 185, If in the same case the Lord paramount release unto the heire all his right in the tenancy, by this release the Menaltie is determined].] |
| 1579 Fenton Guicciard. i. (1599) 5 Quarrels..betweene the vassall and the Lord Peramount. 1592 Warner Alb. Eng. viii. xliii. (1612) 207 With Scots..Who to our Kings, Lords Parramounts, not warres but vprores bring. 1628 Coke On Litt. 65 The King is soueraigne Lord, or Lord paramont, either mediate or immediate of all and euery parcell of Land within the Realme. 1642 Chas. I Answ. Declar. 26 May in Clarendon Hist. Reb. v. § 287 Was not the Interest of the Lord Paramount consistent with that of the Mesne Lord? 1647 Digges Unlawf. Taking Arms xiv. 116 He..made all..feudaries to him, so that he remained..Lord Paramount, or overlord in the whole Land. 1727 A. Hamilton New Acc. E. Ind. I. xxiii. 275 Built, of old, by the Portugueze, when they were Lords Paramount of all the Sea-coasts of India. 1851 Dixon W. Penn xxiii. (1872) 202 Penn was now become the lord paramount of territories almost as large as England. 1865 Livingstone Zambesi v. 108 Part of the Upper Shire Valley has a lady paramount, named Nyango. 1903 Ross Gaz. 10 Sept. 3/4 The prizes were..given away by Lady F. who was the Lady Paramount of the afternoon. |
b. generally. Above others in rank or order; highest in power or jurisdiction; supreme.
| 1531 Dial. on Laws Eng. ii. xxxvi. 73 Thei saye that the kyng is patrone peramounte of all the benifices within the realme. 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 406 He..proceedeth with the gouernours of Persia, whether Paramont or deputed. 1799–1805 S. Turner Anglo-Sax. I. iii. iii. 170 There appears..to have been a paramount sovereign; a Pen-dragon, or Penteyrn. 1828 Scott F.M. Perth xxvii, The Clan Chattan..having for their paramount chief the powerful earl of the latter shire. 1841 Macaulay Ess., W. Hastings (1851) 618 To make Britain the paramount power in India. |
c. paramount chief, esp. in African countries, a tribal chief of the highest order, whose authority extends over an entire district.
| 1844 in F. Brownlee Transkeian Native Territories: Hist. Rec. (1923) 92 Treaty of Amity entered into..on behalf of Her Britannic Majesty, of the one part, and Faku, Paramount Chief of the Amapondo Nation. a 1882 G. W. Stow Native Races S. Afr. (1905) x. 183 They acknowledged a Bushman captain..as their great chief, who..was succeeded by 'Khiba, or 'Kheba, who was the paramount chief over the men of the caves. 1885 in F. Brownlee Transkeian Native Territories: Hist. Rec. (1923) 20 Some of these clans..depended directly upon the paramount chief, others were grouped under a sub-chief. 1919 G. M. Theal Ethnogr. & Condit. S. Afr. before 1505 (ed. 2) x. 212 Sometimes the heads of the clans were members of the family of the paramount chief. 1928 G. P. Lestrade in A. M. Duggan-Cronin Bantu Tribes S. Afr. I. i. 18 The petty chiefs, each of whom is responsible to the paramount chief for the maintenance of good order in his section of the tribe, share in..privileges at the chief's pleasure. 1948 B. G. M. Sundkler Bantu Prophets S. Afr. ii. 38 As the Queen of England was the head of the English Church, so the Paramount Chief of the Tembu should be the summus episcopus of the new religious organization. 1954 E. A. Hoebel Law of Primitive Man viii. 193 Every village, which belongs to a subclan, has its headman... If an ordinary headman, a lesser chief..his powers extend only to the boundaries of his own village. If he is a full chief..his influence will spread over several villages and their subchiefs. If he is a paramount chief among the full chiefs, it will extend over an entire district. 1957 P. Worsley Trumpet shall Sound vi. 119 Three of the Paramount Chiefs failed to report the movement to Government. 1965 A. Nicol Truly Married Woman 87 His main preoccupation was to find ways of slighting the neighbouring and more powerful provincial Paramount Chief. 1971 Rand Daily Mail 4 Dec. 3/4 No member of your Government should consider his position to be more important and exalted than that of the Paramount Chief. 1974 Afr. Encycl. 505/1 The policy of ‘separate development’..which led to the establishment of the Transkei has been opposed by the leader of the ‘True’ Thembu, Paramount Chief Saberta Dalinyebo. 1976 Times 26 Oct. 8/4 Dr. Nicolaas Diederichs, the President of South Africa, handed over a copy of the Transkei Act to the country's first Prime Minister, Paramount Chief Kaiser Matanzima. |
2. a. In more general sense: Superior to all others in influence, power, position, or importance; pre-eminent.
| 1639 Fuller Holy War iii. xix. (1840) 148 The pope that antichrist paramount. a 1661 Fuller Worthies (1840) III. 316 The Cathedral of Salisbury..is paramount in this kind. 1684 T. Burnet Th. Earth ii. 141 He can, by a power paramount, stop the rage either of Satan or Antichrist. 1784 Cowper Task vi. 583 Man's..rights and claims Are paramount. 1816 Coleridge Statesm. Man 359 Sir Philip Sydney—he the paramount gentleman of Europe. 1849 Grote Greece ii. liv. VI. 619 The paramount feeling..tended to peace. 1868 Gladstone Juv. Mundi iii. (1870) 74 The Achaians were paramount, and the Pelasgoi were subordinate members of one and the same community. 1877 J. D. Chambers Divine Worhsip 229 Matters of paramount importance. |
b. Const. to.
| 1625 Bacon Ess., Of Faction, Leagues within the State are euer Pernicious to Monarchies; For they raise an Obligation Paramount to Obligation of Soueraigntie. 1690 Locke Govt. i. xi. (Rtldg.) 126 A right antecedent and paramount to all government. 1769 Junius Lett. xi. 47 Their first duty..is paramount to all subsequent engagements. 1844 Ld. Brougham Brit. Const. xv. (1862) 220 They regarded the title by hereditary succession as paramount to any legislative enactment. |
c. With ellipsis of to.
| 1596 Bacon Max. Com. Law i. (1636) 3 In any degree paramount the first the law respecteth not. 1636 Prynne Unbish. Tim. (1661) 29 Having no superintendent paramount them. 1643 ― Treach. & Disloyalty i. 6 A Generall Councell is paramount the Pope. 1882 Brown Scriven's Law Copyholds (ed. 6) 25 Not..good as against a dowress, whose dower is paramount the debts. |
B. n. = Lord paramount; overlord; supreme ruler or proprietor.
| c 1645 Howell Lett. I. v. xii. (1650) 150 (Hymn) Blest maid which..raignst as Paramount, And chief of Cherubins. 1667 Milton P.L. ii. 508 Midst came thir mighty Paramount. 1779 Forrest Voy. N. Guinea 327 Those paramounts claim the property of the banks, as wel as of the dry land. 1839 Fraser's Mag. XX. 41 The parded paramount of Rome hath rung The knell of onslaught. |
Hence ˈparamountly adv., pre-eminently, chiefly, above all; ˈparamountship, paramountcy.
| 1818 Coleridge in Lit. Rem. (1836) I. 216 Man communicates by articulation of sounds, and *paramountly by the memory in the ear. 1822 Examiner 185/2 Such active instinctiveness of character, as paramountly lives in the canvass of E. Landseer. 1962 S. E. Finer Man on Horseback v. 65 The so-called ‘Free Officers’..regrouped and decided to overthrow the régime, and paramountly the king who headed it. 1971 Country Life 19 Aug. 464/1 The tragedy is that man..still constitutes..the paramountly weak link. 1735 J. Kirby Suffolk Trav. (1764) 154 He is only the mean Lord, Sir Thomas Allen hath a *Paramountship over him. 1898 Daily News 23 Aug. 5/1 Four young native [Basuto] chiefs, including the heir to the paramountship. |
▪ II. † ˈparamount, v. Obs. rare—1.
[f. paramount a.]
intr. To become paramount, to rise to the highest place.
| 1697 Potter Antiq. Greece iv. xi. (1715) 274 And dost thou think, thou dirty, servile Woman, To paramount, to cast me out? |