Preference
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
Priority of payment, or right thereto. Preferences may be either involuntary, being the right which a creditor obtains by law to be first paid out of the assets of the debtor, as by obtaining a judgment which is a lien on his lands, or voluntary, being the paying or securing to one or more of his creditors by a debtor (usually insolvent) the whole or a part of their claims, to the exclusion of the rest.