Lexic.us

Definition of Principal

1. Adjective. Most important element. "A master switch"

2. Noun. The original amount of a debt on which interest is calculated.

3. Noun. The educator who has executive authority for a school. "She sent unruly pupils to see the principal"

4. Noun. An actor who plays a principal role.

5. Noun. Capital as contrasted with the income derived from it.

6. Noun. (criminal law) any person involved in a criminal offense, regardless of whether the person profits from such involvement.

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

Definition of Principal

1. 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.

2. 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.

Definition of Principal

1. Adjective. Primary; most important. ¹

2. Noun. (context: finance uncountable) The money originally invested or loaned, on which basis interest and returns are calculated. ¹

3. Noun. (North America Australia New Zealand) The chief administrator of a school. ¹

4. Noun. (UK Scotland Canada) The chief executive and chief academic officer of a university or college. ¹

5. Noun. (legal) One who directs another (the agent) to act on one?s behalf. ¹

6. Noun. (legal) The primary participant in a crime. ¹

7. Noun. A company represented by a salesperson. ¹

8. Noun. (North America) A partner or owner of a business. ¹

9. Noun. (music) A diapason, a type of organ stop on a pipe organ. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Principal

1. [n -S]

Lexicographical Neighbors of Principal

princeship princeships princess princess cut princess feather princess pine princess royal princesse princesses princesslike

princessly princessy princewood princified princing principal (current term) principal(a) principal axis principal diagonal principal ideal

principal ideal domain principal investigator principal photography principal quantum number principal sum principalist principalists principalities principality principall

Literary usage of Principal

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge (1920)
"The principal Allied and Associated Powers will then fix the frontier between East ... As soon as the line has been fixed by the principal Allied and ..."

2. The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge (1918)
"In the more restricted sense in which the term is used in the law of principal and agent, agency may be defined as the relation which results where one ..."

3. A Treatise on the Law of Suretyship and Guaranty by Darius Harlan Pingrey (1900)
"surety, knowing such to be the ease, pays the whole amount without request by the principal, the surety is not entitled to relief* even under a mortgage to ..."

4. Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift (1894)
"A Conversation between the Author and a principal Secretary, concerning Hie Affairs of that Empire. The Author's Offers to serve the Emperor in his Wars. ..."

5. The Anatomy of Melancholy: What it Is, with All the Kinds, Causes, Symptoms by Robert Burton (1847)
"The principal habits are two in number, virtue and vice, whose peculiar definitions, ... 10. calling it "a depravation of the principal function:" ..."

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