preferred

1. 1
   adjective

   Liked, chosen, or regarded as better than the available alternatives.

   Like a regular customer who always points to the same dish on the menu.

   The committee named its preferred candidate for the role.

   Many readers still call print their preferred format for long articles.

   Similarfavored, favorite, chosen, selected

   Note

   Though it began as a participle, it behaves as a true adjective, sitting before its noun in phrases like a preferred candidate or a preferred format. It can also be graded as more preferred or most preferred. Those forms belong where several options are being ranked against one another, rather than one simply being chosen.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of prefer.

   He preferred the original version of the song to every later remix.

   Historically, sailors preferred routes with steady, reliable winds.

   Note

   One spelling serves as both the past tense and the participle, so she preferred and she has preferred look alike. Note the doubled r, which prefer itself lacks. The form carries every meaning of the verb, not only liking better. In they preferred charges, it keeps the sense of presenting a matter to an authority. In the comparison, the thing passed over follows to: preferred tea to coffee.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   Stock that pays holders a fixed dividend and gives them priority over common shares when payments are made.

   Like a season-ticket holder who gets a guaranteed seat before general admission.

   Income investors often favor preferred for its predictable dividends and senior claim on assets.

   When the firm restructured, holders of preferred were paid before common shareholders.

   Oppositecommon

   Note

   A clipping of preferred stock that finance treats as a noun in its own right. Used as a mass noun, it stands alone, as in holders of preferred. Counted as separate issues, it takes a plural, preferreds. Gretchen Morgenson, in the New York Times in 2008, wrote of the juice that auction-rate preferreds provide to closed-end funds' common shareholders.

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