Preference

The paying or securing to one or more of his creditors, by an insolvent debtor, the whole or a part of their claim, to the exclusion of the rest. By preference is also meant the right which a creditor has acquired over others to be paid first out of the assets of his debtor, as when a creditor has obtained a judgment against his debtor which binds the latter's land, he has a preference.

Voluntary preferences are forbidden by the insolvent laws of some of the states, and are void, when made in a general assignment for the benefit of creditors.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.