Emily Dickinson Lexicon
Definition for PRE'MI-UM
PRE'MI-UM, n. [L.]
- Properly, a reward or recompense; a prize to be won by competition; the reward or prize to be adjudged to the best performance or production.
- The recompense or prize offered for a specific discovery or for success in an enterprise; as for the discovery of the longitude, or of a northwest passage to the Pacific Ocean.
- A bounty; something offered or given for the loan of money, usually, a sum beyond the interest.
- The recompense to underwriters for insurance, or for undertaking to indemnify for losses of any kind.
- It is sometimes synonymous with interest, but generally in obtaining loans, it is a sum per cent, distinct from the interest. The bank lends money to government at a premium of 2 per cent.
- A bounty. The law that obliges parishes to support the poor, offers a premium for the encouragement of idleness. – Franklin.
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