Definition of "pre-eminence"

And being always with her, and always talking confidentially, and his feelings exactly in that favourable state which a recent disappointment gives, those soft light eyes could not be very long in obtaining the pre-eminence.

1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter XVII, in Mansfield Park: […], volume III, London: […] T[homas] Egerton, […], pages 347–348

While the Deutsche Bundesbahn has not reattained the pre-eminence in European railway speed that the German railways enjoyed before the 1939-1945 war, speeds in that country are steadily moving upwards [...].

1962 August, "Mercury", “The fastest trains on the Continent, 1962: II—Western Germany”, in Modern Railways, page 125