verb

• (transitive) To be in the habit of choosing something rather than something else; to favor; to like better.
  "I prefer tea to coffee."
• (transitive, now dated) To advance, promote (someone or something).
  "So ſhall you haue a ſhorter iourney to your deſires, by the meanes I ſhall then haue to preferre them. And the impediment moſt profitably remoued, without the which there were no expectation of our proſperitie."
• (transitive) To present or submit (something) to an authority (now usually in "to prefer charges").
  "[…], let him go, And preſently preferre his ſuite to Cæſar."
• (obsolete, transitive) To put forward for acceptance; to introduce, recommend (to).
  "one Master David Hume, who making some use of his purse, gave him Letters to his friends in Scotland to preferre him to King Iames."