preexist

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

When the poems may emerge from Native voices, which preexist the nation, or from those who withstand discrimination and violence here — trans and queer writers, immigrants, and people of color?

From Washington Post • Apr. 14, 2023

Sandefur documents how far the United States has lapsed from the Founders’ premise that our rights preexist government, which is instituted to protect them.

From Washington Post • Mar. 24, 2017

Ideally, it involves familiarity with the Founders’ doctrine of natural rights — rights that preexist government, which exists to secure them.

From Washington Post • Mar. 10, 2017

But, on the other hand, it is just as hard to conceive that the future does not preexist, that there is nothing before the present and that everything is only present or past.

From The Unknown Guest by Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander

But the thought is always prior to the fact; all the facts of history preexist in the mind as laws.

From Essays — First Series by Emerson, Ralph Waldo