preferabilityn.

1749 W. Jameson Ess. Virtue & Harmony iv. 276 An Idea which may be supposed to include all the Views represented above of the Preferability of Virtue, and its necessity according to Nature, for our Good.

1827 J. Bentham Rationale Judicial Evid. IV. ix. i. i. 482 The preferability of the less injustice to the greater would scarcely be contested.

1841 T. Carlyle On Heroes iii. 157 Good and Evil..differ not by preferability of one to the other, but by incompatibility absolute and infinite.

1879 Mind 4 232 Since voluntariness implies choice, and choice implies belief..of total preferability for the chooser there can be no doubt that in every voluntary act the agent follows..his own apparent interest.

1900 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 6 257 It seems possible in this way to reduce all preferability to degrees of pleasantness.

1927 Amer. Hist Rev. 32 533 The relative cost and preferability of the several routes..receive a good deal of attention.

1962 L. J. Cohen Diversity of Meaning vi. 160 The preferability of one conceptual form to another.

1992 New Republic 4 May 33/1 The publication of this testimony to the preferability of Jewish fate in exile chillingly coincided with the single most emblematic moment of that fate: the Nazi destruction of the Warsaw ghetto.