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principle

noun
/ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/CA

Etymology

From Middle English principle, from Old French principe, from Latin prīncipium (“beginning, foundation”), from prīnceps (“first”). By surface analysis, prīmus (“first”) + -ceps (“catcher”); the former ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *preh₂- (“before”); see also prince.

  1. derived from *preh₂-✻
  2. derived from prīncipium
  3. derived from principe
  4. inherited from principle

Definitions

  1. A fundamental assumption or guiding belief.

    • We need some sort of principles to reason from.

  2. A rule used to choose among solutions to a problem.

    • The principle of least privilege holds that a process should only receive the permissions it needs.

  3. Moral rule or aspect.

    • I don't doubt your principles.
    • You are clearly a person of principle.
    • It's the principle of the thing; I won't do business with someone I can't trust.
  4. ›+ 7 more definitions

    1. A rule or law of nature, or the basic idea on how the laws of nature are applied.

      • Bernoulli's principle
      • The Pauli Exclusion Principle prevents two fermions from occupying the same state.
      • The principle of the internal combustion engine

    2. A fundamental essence, particularly one producing a given quality.

      • Many believe that life is the result of some vital principle.

    3. A source, or origin

      A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.

      • The soul of man is an active principle.

    4. An original faculty or endowment.

      • those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or suffering

    5. Misspelling of principal.

    6. A beginning.

      • Doubting sad end of principle unsound.

    7. To equip with principles

      To equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet or rule of conduct.

      • Let an enthusiast be principled that he or his teacher is inspired.

The neighborhood

Derived

acceleration principle, agreement in principle, Anna Karenina principle, anthropic principle, antiprinciple, Archimedes' principle, arm's length principle, aufbau principle, Babinet's principle, BANANA principle, Bernoulli's principle, Bridlington principle, Cavalieri's principle, Chicago principles, composite reuse principle, context principle, cooperative principle, Copernican principle, Copernican time principle, correspondence principle, cosmological principle, counterprinciple, Courant minimax principle, d'Alembert's principle, day-year principle, dependency inversion principle, desert principle, Dilbert principle, Dirichlet's box principle, Dirichlet's drawer principle, dormitive principle, equivalence principle, extractive principle, Fermat's principle, Fermat's principle of least time, Fick principle, first principle, first principles, four-eye principle, Franck-Condon principle · +97 more

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at principle. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01principle02guiding03guide04institution05house06human07nature08strength09confidence10secret

A definitional loop anchored at principle. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

10 hops · closes at principle

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA