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principle

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A fundamental assumption or guiding belief.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

prinsuhpuhl

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IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈpɹɪnsəpəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A fundamental assumption or guiding belief.

  2. sometimes pluralized

    Moral rule or aspect.

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

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

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

  6. An original faculty or endowment.

verb

  1. transitive

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

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A rule used to choose among solutions to a problem.

Used this way, principle is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use principle

  • “Their principles of composition characterized all their works.”noun
  • “The principle of the conservation of mass.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Rule

moral principle

Fundamental

fundamental principle

Basic

basic principle

Other combinations

first principlepleasure principlegeneral principlegreat principlenew principle

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • principledadjectiveInflected form

    Based on or manifesting objectively defined standards of rightness or morality.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • principle of liquid displacementnounCompound term

    The volume of a body immersed in a fluid is equal to the volume of the displaced fluid.

  • principle of relativitynounCompound term

    A universal law that states that the laws of mechanics are not affected by a uniform rectilinear motion of the system of coordinates to which they are referred.

  • principle of superpositionnounCompound term

    The principle that in a series of stratified sedimentary rocks the lowest stratum is the oldest.

  • principle of parsimonynounCompound term

    The principle that entities should not be multiplied needlessly.

  • principle of equivalencenounCompound term

    The principle that an observer has no way of distinguishing whether his laboratory is in a uniform gravitational field or is in an accelerated frame of reference.

  • bitter principlenounCompound term

    Any one of several hundred compounds having a bitter taste.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: to equip with principles

rule

Commonly Confused With

principalPrincipal vs. PrincipleKnow the difference

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.