Other forms: principles
A principle is a rule you have decided not to break. She handed the money back on principle. He will not work on a Sunday, and that is a principle rather than a preference.
The other principle is the rule a thing runs on rather than a rule you keep: the principles of physics, the principle behind a heat pump, a machine that works on the same principle as a bicycle pump. Two phrases carry a lot of weight — on principle means you refuse for a reason you hold, while in principle means you like the idea and the details are still to come. Then there is the spelling trap, which catches native speakers weekly. Principal, with an a, is a different word: the head of a school, the main thing, the sum you borrowed. A principle is a rule; a principal is a person or the biggest part. If the word main will go in front of it, you want principal.
1nounprincipleA rule of right and wrong that you hold to and will not trade away.~17%
“She resigned on a point of principle.”
synonyms: conviction, standard
2nounlogicA basic law or truth that other reasoning, or a machine, rests on.~83%
“The principle of the lever explains the whole machine.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 174 sentences found in the wild and placed 173 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
PRIN-ciple → a PRISON
The prison gate stands wide open and a plate of hot food waits on the step outside. The man on the bench does not move. He folds his arms, looks at the white line painted across the floor, and stays behind it.
hooks ontoprison
Latin prīncipium was a beginning, a foundation, and it was built on prīnceps, first. A principle is literally the first thing — what you lay down before anything can stand on it. Prince is the same Latin word wearing a crown.
Proto-Indo-European
*keh₂p-
Proto-Indo-European
*preh₂- — before
Latin
prīncipium — beginning, foundation
Old French
principe
Middle English
principle
English, today
principle
Built from
From Middle English principle, from Old French principe, from Latin prīncipium (“beginning, foundation”), from prīnceps (“first”). by surface analysis, prīmus + -ceps; the former ultimately from Proto-Indo-European preh₂- (“before”); see also prince.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA