Sentence:  In the city of Zenith, in the barbarous twentieth century, a family's motor indicated its social rank as precisely as the grades of the peerage determined the rank of an English family—indeed, more precisely, considering the opinion of old county families upon newly created brewery barons and woolen-mill viscounts. The details of <WSD>precedence</WSD> were never officially determined. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The state of preceding in importance or priority.