Meaning of 'principal' (Webster Dictionary)
- 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.
- Of or pertaining to a prince; princely.
- 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.
- The chief actor in a crime, or an abettor who is present
at it, -- as distinguished from an accessory.
- A chief obligor, promisor, or debtor, -- as
distinguished from a surety.
- One who employs another to act for him, -- as
distinguished from an agent.
- A thing of chief or prime importance; something
fundamental or especially conspicuous.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- A heirloom; a mortuary.
- The first two long feathers of a hawk's wing.
- One of turrets or pinnacles of waxwork and tapers with
which the posts and center of a funeral hearse were formerly crowned.
- A principal or essential point or rule; a principle.
Definition
[ a.]