Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun the principle of
royal succession in which the first son born after his father'saccession to thethrone has the first claim, even if he has older brothers who were born before the father's crowning.
Etymologies
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Examples
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The danger was this: over and above the want of any principle for regulating the succession, and this want operating in a state of things far less determined than amongst monogamous nations -- one son pleading his priority of birth; another, perhaps, his mother's higher rank, a third pleading his very juniority, inasmuch as this brought him within the description of _porphyrogeniture_, or royal birth, which is often felt as transcendent as _primogeniture_ -- even the people, apart from the several pretenders to the throne, would create separate interests as grounds for insurrection or for intestine feuds.
The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 Thomas De Quincey 1822
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