PARAMOUNT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does paramount mean? 

• PARAMOUNT (adjective)
  The adjective PARAMOUNT has 1 sense:

1. having superior power and influence

  Familiarity information: PARAMOUNT used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PARAMOUNT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Having superior power and influence

Synonyms:

overriding; paramount; predominant; predominate; preponderant; preponderating

Context example:

the predominant mood among policy-makers is optimism

Similar:

dominant (exercising influence or control)

 Context examples 

It is the shortest cranial nerve and of paramount importance in the sense of smell.

(Olfactory Nerve, NCI Thesaurus)

This was my duty, but there was another still paramount to that.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Humph! said Miss Murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles; it is of more importance than anything else—it is of paramount importance—that my brother should not be disturbed or made uncomfortable.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Control of pain, of other symptoms, and of psychological, social, and spiritual problems is paramount.

(Hospice Care, NCI Thesaurus)

But a reporter's work is all hack from morning till night, is the one paramount thing of life.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It was not without some emotion that he looked upon the scene around him, for, in spite of his secluded life, he knew enough of the ancient greatness of his own family to be aware that the time had been when they had held undisputed and paramount sway over all that tract of country.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Wild was the wrestle which should be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed: something hard and cynical: self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and petrified his countenance: he went on—During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with my destiny.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal; when duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I said he was right there—never under my roof, where the Lares were sacred, and the laws of hospitality paramount.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)