Word: principal Part of Speech: noun Etymology: From Middle English principal, from Old French principal, from Latin prīncipālis. Pronunciation: /ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/, [ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pɫ̩], /ˈpɹɪn.sə.pəl/, [ˈpɹɪn.sə.pɫ̩] 1. The money originally invested or loaned, on which basis interest and returns are calculated. Labels: uncountable Example: A portion of your mortgage payment goes to reduce the principal, and the rest covers interest. Example: In March 1902, I find in the statement of liabilities and assets £711 put down as arrears of interest, but there is no entry of arrears of principal. 2. The chief administrator of a school. Labels: Australia, Canada, New-Zealand, Philippines, US, countable, uncountable Example: The important administrative figure to the teacher is the school principal. Example: The problem was neatly summed up by one principal in Australia who said recently: ‘There is no incentive for me to develop my best teachers to become my successor.[…]’ 3. The chief executive and chief academic officer of a university or college. Labels: Canada, UK, countable, uncountable Example: 1967, University of Edinburgh Graduates′ Association, University of Edinburgh Journal, Volumes 23-24, page 314, Unlike the students, Principal Robertson, who now resided almost alone in the College, continued to use the accustomed route on his visits to the Old Town; and it “became the joke of the day that from being the principal gate it had become only a gate for the Principal.”⁵ Example: Coordinate term: bursar 4. A legal person that authorizes another (the agent) to act on their behalf; or on whose behalf an agent or gestor in a negotiorum gestio acts. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: When an attorney represents a client, the client is the principal who permits the attorney, the client′s agent, to act on the client′s behalf. Example: My principal sells metal shims. 5. The primary participant in a crime. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: The accessories may be prosecuted, tried and punished, though the principal has not been prosecuted or has been acquitted. 6. Either party in a duel. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: The old man raised his arm as though it had been palsied, and fired, of course without effect. The other principal immediately deloped, much to the satisfaction of my friend and all present. 7. A partner or owner of a business. Labels: Canada, US, countable, uncountable 8. A type of stop on a pipe organ consisting of flue pipes with a bright tonal quality. They are also sometimes referred to as a diapason. Labels: countable, uncountable 9. The construction that gives shape and strength to a roof, generally a truss of timber or iron; or, loosely, the most important member of a piece of framing. Labels: countable, uncountable 10. The first two long feathers of a hawk's wing. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: a birde whose principals be scarce growne out Example: The first two feathers - Principals 11. One of the turrets or pinnacles of waxwork and tapers with which the posts and centre of a funeral hearse were formerly crowned Labels: countable, uncountable 12. An essential point or rule; a principle. Labels: countable, obsolete, uncountable Example: Set two classes of monitors to question each other; so that one may try to outquestion the other. Explain to them the principal of every subject they have to teach. 13. A dancer at the highest rank within a professional dance company, particularly a ballet company. Labels: countable, uncountable 14. A security principal. Labels: countable, uncountable 15. A main character or lead actor. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: Silverberg also gives the reader reader some excellent character insight; deep probes into the minds of all the principals bring the reader closer to the persons involved than might be thought possible with the plot so far removed from the realm of normality.