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principal
[ prin-suh-puhl ]
adjective
- first or highest in rank, importance, value, etc.; chief; foremost:
The principal problem is a lack of money.
She's the principal advisor on the council.
Synonyms: preeminent, cardinal, main, leading, paramount, prime
- of, of the nature of, or constituting principal or capital:
Though our portfolio has seen losses, the principal investment remains untouched.
- Geometry. (of an axis of a conic) passing through the foci.
noun
- a chief or head.
Synonyms: leader
- the head or director of a school or, especially in England, a college.
Synonyms: master, dean, headmaster
- a person who takes a leading part in any activity, as a play; chief actor or doer.
- the first player of a division of instruments in an orchestra (excepting the leader of the first violins).
- something of principal or chief importance.
- Law.
- a person who authorizes someone else, such as an agent, to represent them.
- a person directly responsible for a crime, either as an actual perpetrator or as an abettor present at its commission. Compare accessory ( def 3 ).
- a person primarily liable for an obligation, in contrast with an endorser, or the like.
- the main body of an estate, or the like, as distinguished from income.
- Finance. a capital sum, as distinguished from interest or profit.
- Music.
- an organ stop.
- the subject of a fugue.
- (in a framed structure) a member, as a truss, upon which adjacent or similar members depend for support or reinforcement.
- each of the combatants in a duel, as distinguished from the seconds.
principal
/ ˈprɪnsɪpəl /
adjective
- first in importance, rank, value, etc; chief
- denoting or relating to capital or property as opposed to interest, etc
noun
- a person who is first in importance or directs some event, action, organization, etc
- (in Britain) a civil servant of an executive grade who is in charge of a section
- law
- a person who engages another to act as his agent
- an active participant in a crime
- the person primarily liable to fulfil an obligation
- the head of a school or other educational institution
- (in Scottish schools) a head of department
- finance
- capital or property, as contrasted with the income derived from it
- the original amount of a debt on which interest is calculated
- a main roof truss or rafter
- music
- the chief instrumentalist in a section of the orchestra
- one of the singers in an opera company
- either of two types of open diapason organ stops, one of four-foot length and pitch and the other of eight-foot length and pitch
- the leading performer in a play
Usage
Confusables Note
Derived Forms
- ˈprincipalship, noun
Other Words From
- princi·pal·ship noun
- under·princi·pal noun
Word History and Origins
Origin of principal1
Word History and Origins
Origin of principal1
Synonym Study
Example Sentences
The leak suggests that Mr. Obama remains blind to the principal cause of his foreign policy woes.
The Spire rests on the same basic principal as the old-school fountains.
But younger members of the community who encountered the man as a principal had a different tale to tell.
He recalled one event, when he was playing with a friend, Areah, when the principal came outside and found them.
In an ultra-Orthodox enclave of upstate New York, a former student has accused a principal of sex acts.
This is the first and principal point at which we can stanch the wastage of teaching energy that now goes on.
"The Smoker," and "Mother and Daughter," a triptych, are two of her principal pictures.
It is the principal waste-product of metabolism, and constitutes about one-half of all the solids excreted—about 30 gm.
The principal room or "hall" will accommodate about 1,000 persons, the remaining portion of the premises being let off in offices.
Thomas Barnes, principal editor of the Times newspaper, died in London, aged 56.
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