Paramount
adj, name, noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A chief or superior; (specifically, chiefly South Africa) an African chief having the highest status in a region; a paramount chief.
- 2 A supreme ruler; an overlord; (specifically, historical) in the feudal system, a landowner who did not derive ownership of the land from anyone else, and who was able to grant fees to others; a lord paramount. obsolete
- 1 Highest, supreme; also, chief, leading, pre-eminent. not-comparable, often, postpositional
"[…]a Traitor Paramount;"
- 2 Of the highest importance. not-comparable
"Getting those credit cards paid off is paramount."
- 3 Of a law, right, etc.: having precedence over or superior to another. not-comparable, obsolete
- 1 having superior power and influence wordnet
- 1 A city in Los Angeles County, California, United States.
Example
More examples"It is paramount to all the others."
Etymology
PIE word *h₂éd From Anglo-Norman paramont /paramount (“paramount, pre-eminent; above”), from Old French par /per (“by”) + amont /amunt (“upward”). Par is derived from Latin per (“by means of, through”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to go through; to carry forth, fare”); amont and amunt are from Latin ad montem (“to the mountain; upward”), from ad (“up to”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd (“at; to”)) + montem (the accusative singular of mōns (“mount, mountain”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to stand out, tower”)).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.