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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 17, 2009 is:
preeminent \pre-EM-uh-nunt\ adjective
: having paramount rank, dignity, or importance : outstanding, supreme
Examples:
Carrie considered herself lucky to have one of the country’s preeminent novelists as her writing professor.
Did you know?
What is noteworthy about the following sentence? "Mount McKinley is a prominent eminence in the Alaskan landscape." You very likely recognized two words that are closely related to "preeminent" -- "prominent" and "eminence." All three words are rooted in the Latin verb stem "-minēre," meaning "to stand out." But did you note as well the related word "mount"? Not too surprisingly, "-minēre" is related to "mons," the Latin word for "mountain." That relationship leads us in turn to "paramount," a word closely related in meaning to "preeminent."
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