His avowed reason for choosing this city was that Diana had preempted Ephesus, Augustus Pergamum, and Tiberius Smyrna.

"Mind my preempting your job?" "Not at all," she answered.

This exclusiveness is foreshadowed in the habits of the majority of animals, each pair preempting a particular log or burrow or tree in which to rear its young, to which it retreats for safety from enemies.

Through another streak of luck we preempted a room in the schoolhouse and held it against all comers by right of squatter sovereignty.