Definition of Principal

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Principal

Highest in rank, authority, character, importance, or degree; most considerable or important; chief; main; as, the principal officers of a Government; the principal men of a state; the principal productions of a country; the principal arguments in a case.

Of or pertaining to a prince; princely.

A leader, chief, or head; one who takes the lead; one who acts independently, or who has controlling authority or influence; as, the principal of a faction, a school, a firm, etc.; -- distinguished from a subordinate, abettor, auxiliary, or assistant.

The chief actor in a crime, or an abettor who is present at it, -- as distinguished from an accessory.

A chief obligor, promisor, or debtor, -- as distinguished from a surety.

One who employs another to act for him, -- as distinguished from an agent.

A thing of chief or prime importance; something fundamental or especially conspicuous.

A capital sum of money, placed out at interest, due as a debt or used as a fund; -- so called in distinction from interest or profit.

The construction which gives shape and strength to a roof, -- generally a truss of timber or iron, but there are roofs with stone principals. Also, loosely, the most important member of a piece of framing.

In English organs the chief open metallic stop, an octave above the open diapason. On the manual it is four feet long, on the pedal eight feet. In Germany this term corresponds to the English open diapason.

A heirloom; a mortuary.

The first two long feathers of a hawk's wing.

One of turrets or pinnacles of waxwork and tapers with which the posts and center of a funeral hearse were formerly crowned.

A principal or essential point or rule; a principle.

Related Definitions:

Abettor, Above, Accessory, Act, Actor, Agent, Also, An, And, Another, Are, As, Assistant, At, Authority, Auxiliary, But, Called, Capital, Case, Center, Character, Chief, Considerable, Conspicuous, Construction, Controlling, Country, Crime, Crowned, Debt, Debtor, Degree, Diapason, Distinction, Distinguished, Due, Eight, English, Especially, Essential, Faction, Feet, Firm, First, For, Formerly, Four, Framing, From, Fund, Fundamental, Funeral, Generally, Gives, Government, Hawk, Head, Hearse, Heirloom, Him, Has, Importance, Important, In, Independently, Influence, Interest, Iron, Is, It, Lead, Leader, Long, Loosely, Main, Manual, Member, Men, Metallic, Mortuary, Most, Money, Obligor, Octave, Of, On, One, Open, Or, Out, Pedal, Pertaining, Piece, Placed, Point, Present, Prime, Prince, Princely, Principal, Principle, Profit, Promisor, Rank, Roof, Rule, School, Shape, So, Something, State, Stone, Stop, Strength, Subordinate, Sum, Surety, Term, The, There, Thing, This, Timber, To, Truss, Two, Used, Waxwork, Were, Which, Who, Wing, With

Principal Quotations

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them.
Saint Thomas Aquinas

And obviously, from our own personal point of view, the principal challenge is a personal challenge.
Richard Branson

Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.
Ambrose Bierce

Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.
Edmund Burke

Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.
Bertrand Russell

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
Bertrand Russell

It has not been for nothing that the word has remained man's principal toy and tool: without the meanings and values it sustains, all man's other tools would be worthless.
Lewis Mumford

It won't do away with hierarchy totally, but the principal leader will be the person who most exemplifies the kind of organization and behavior required who is best able to create the conditions such organizations require.
Dee Hock

Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?
Herman Melville

Principal Translations

principal in Dutch is hoofd-, voornaamste
principal in Latin is potissimus
principal in Spanish is principal
principal in Swedish is huvudsakligen

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