principal

[prin·ci·pal]

For an adjective that points to the main or most important thing, your best choice is principal. Is your principal goal for the summer to have fun or to earn some extra money?

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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.

Noun
the major party to a financial transaction at a stock exchange; buys and sells for his own account

Noun
the educator who has executive authority for a school; "she sent unruly pupils to see the principal"

Noun
an actor who plays a principal role

Noun
capital as contrasted with the income derived from it

Noun
the original amount of a debt on which interest is calculated

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a.
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.

a.
Of or pertaining to a prince; princely.

n.
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.

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

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

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

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

n.
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.

n.
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.

n.
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.

n.
A heirloom; a mortuary.

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

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

n.
A principal or essential point or rule; a principle.

Principal

Prin"ci*pal , a. [F., from L. principalis. See Prince.] 1. 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.

Wisdom is the principal thing.

2. Of or pertaining to a prince; princely. [A Latinism] [Obs.] Spenser. Principal axis. See Axis of a curve, under Axis. -- Principal axes of a quadric (Geom.), three lines in which the principal planes of the solid intersect two and two, as in an ellipsoid. -- Principal challenge. (Law) See under Challenge. -- Principal plane. See Plane of projection (a), under Plane. -- Principal of a quadric (Geom.), three planes each of which is at right angles to the other two, and bisects all chords of the quadric perpendicular to the plane, as in an ellipsoid. -- Principal point (Persp.), the projection of the point of sight upon the plane of projection. -- Principal ray (Persp.), the line drawn through the point of sight perpendicular to the perspective plane. -- Principal section (Crystallog.), a plane passing through the optical axis of a crystal.

Principal

Prin"ci*pal, n. 1. 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. 2. Hence: (Law) (a) The chief actor in a crime, or an abettor who is present at it, -- as distinguished from an accessory. (b) A chief obligor, promisor, or debtor, -- as distinguished from a surety. (c) One who employs another to act for him, -- as distinguished from an agent. Wharton. Bouvier. Burrill. 3. A thing of chief or prime importance; something fundamental or especially conspicuous. Specifically: (a) (Com.) 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. (b) (Arch. & Engin.) 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. (c) (Mus.) 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. (d) (O. Eng. Law) A heirloom; a mortuary. Cowell. (e) pl. The first two long feathers of a hawk's wing. Spenser. J. H. Walsh. (f) One of turrets or pinnacles of waxwork and tapers with which the posts and center of a funeral hearse were formerly crowned. Oxf. Gloss. (g) A principal or essential point or rule; a principle. [Obs.]

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.

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.

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Usage Examples

Light, God's eldest daughter, is a principal beauty in a building.

All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.

My parents moved to American Samoa when I was three or four years old. My dad was principal of a high school there. It was idyllic for a kid. I had a whole island for a backyard. I lived there until I was eight years old and we moved to Santa Barbara.

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

If we did not look to marriage as the principal source of happiness, fewer marriages would end in tears.

I want to assure your excellency that I am occupying myself permanently and jointly with my team to achieve a solution as soon as possible to this crisis, the principal objective being the safeguarding of the health and life of those who are inside.

Smoking is the now the principal avoidable cause of premature death in Britain. It hits the worst off people hardest of all. Smoking is one of the principal causes of the health gap which leads to poorer people being ill more often and dying sooner.

Misspelled Form

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Other Usage Examples

One of the principal goals in my life has been to avoid embarrassing my children by doing the job I do. I hope I've managed to do that, and I hope that, with the job I'm in now, they are, if not proud, at least unembarrassed by it. I must say, my three are most agreeable children, who do nothing but delight me.

One can decide that the principal role of knowledge is as an indispensable element in the functioning of society, and act in accordance with that decision, only if one has already decided that society is a giant machine.

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.

My principal motivation is supporting my family, which is not a bad reason for getting up in the morning. That's always been my motivation - to take care of the people who rely on me.

I have terrible hearing trouble. I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal proponents deaf.

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

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.

Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on.