pre-emption (n.)

  1. the judicial principle asserting the supremacy of federal over state legislation on the same subject

    [ Syn: preemption ]

  2. the right of a government to seize or appropriate something (as property)

    [ Syn: preemption ]

  3. the right to purchase something in advance of others

    [ Syn: preemption ]

  4. a prior appropriation of something; the preemption of bandwidth by commercial interests

    [ Syn: preemption ]

The dictionary is based on the WordNet Electronic Lexical Database.
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