PRINCIPLE • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Principle

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/prˈɪnsəpəl/ Listen

noun

Principle n.

1.

Beginning; commencement. (Obs.) "Doubting sad end of principle unsound."

2.

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."

3.

An original faculty or endowment. "Nature in your principles hath set (benignity)." "Those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or suffering."

4.

A fundamental truth; a comprehensive law or doctrine, from which others are derived, or on which others are founded; a general truth; an elementary proposition; a maxim; an axiom; a postulate. "Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection." "A good principle, not rightly understood, may prove as hurtful as a bad."

5.

A settled rule of action; a governing law of conduct; an opinion or belief which exercises a directing influence on the life and behavior; a rule (usually, a right rule) of conduct consistently directing one's actions; as, a person of no principle. "All kinds of dishonesty destroy our pretenses to an honest principle of mind."

6.

(Chem.) Any original inherent constituent which characterizes a substance, or gives it its essential properties, and which can usually be separated by analysis; applied especially to drugs, plant extracts, etc. "Cathartine is the bitter, purgative principle of senna."

Bitter principle, Principle of contradiction, etc. See under Bitter, Contradiction, etc.

verb

Principle v. t. (past & past part. principled; pres. part. principling) To equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet, or rule of conduct, good or ill. "Governors should be well principled." "Let an enthusiast be principled that he or his teacher is inspired."

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Etymology of 'Principle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Principle" Quotes from Famous Books

... notice from the publisher, expressing a hope that the author would be provoked to give a more perfect edition. This, accordingly, appeared in 1729. Pope seems to have been partly led to this device by a principle which he avowed to Warburton. When he had anything specially sharp to say he kept it for a second edition, where, it would, he thought, pass with less offence. But he may also have been under the impression that all the mystery of apparently spurious editions would excite public curiosity. ...

— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... more devout followers. The army which had gone out from Kirtland in '34 to the rescue of the fugitives from the city of Zion in Missouri had failed, through disease and exhaustion, to make warlike demonstration; but the principle then accepted by the children of Zion of opposing force to force in self-defence, had been bearing fruit ever since in a bloody warfare between the hunted Saints of Missouri and their ...

— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... friendship you have formed with Donald Whiting. My mother and Mrs. Whiting were friends. She is a charming woman and it has seemed to me that in her daughter Louise she has managed a happy compound of old-fashioned straightforwardness and unswerving principle, festooned with happy trimmings of all that is best in the present days. I hope that you do become acquainted with her. She is older than you, but she is the kind of girl I ...

— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... extreme modesty and propriety are two very different things. Cicero makes the latter consist in saying what is appropriate one should say, considering the place, the time, and the persons to whom one is speaking. This principle once admitted, it is not a fault of judgment to entertain the people of to-day with Tales which are a little broad. Neither do I sin in that against morality. If there is anything in our writings which is capable of making an impression on the ...

— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... whose earliest years had been guided and illuminated on the principle that reason and persuasion alone are to be used in the training of the tender twig, this little occurrence afforded food for serious wonder and reflection. I doubted if the logic of the sages or the wooing of the celestial seraphim would have wrought with such convincing power on the mind ...

— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

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