Definitions for principal

• Definition
• Anagrams (235)

principal prin·ci·pal

Spelling: [prin-suh-puh l]

IPA: /ˈprɪn sə pəl/

Principal is a 9 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 15 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 20 points.

You can make 235 anagrams from letters in principal (aciilnppr).

Definitions for principal

noun

1. a chief or head.
2. the head or director of a school or, especially in England, a college.
3. a person who takes a leading part in any activity, as a play; chief actor or doer.
4. the first player of a division of instruments in an orchestra (excepting the leader of the first violins).
5. something of principal or chief importance.
6. Law. a person who authorizes another, as an agent, to represent him or her. a person directly responsible for a crime, either as an actual perpetrator or as an abettor present at its commission. Compare accessory (def 3).
7. a person primarily liable for an obligation, in contrast with an endorser, or the like.
8. the main body of an estate, or the like, as distinguished from income.
9. Finance. a capital sum, as distinguished from interest or profit.
10. Music. an organ stop. the subject of a fugue.
11. (in a framed structure) a member, as a truss, upon which adjacent or similar members depend for support or reinforcement.
12. each of the combatants in a duel, as distinguished from the seconds.

adjective

1. first or highest in rank, importance, value, etc.; chief; foremost.
2. of, of the nature of, or constituting principal or capital:
3. Geometry. (of an axis of a conic) passing through the foci.

Origin of principal

1250-1300; Middle English Latin prīncipālis first, chief, equivalent to prīncip- (see prince) + -ālis -al¹

Examples for principal

While abuse of a sexual nature is new for the principal, accusations of physical abuse have long dogged the school.

But younger members of the community who encountered the man as a principal had a different tale to tell.

The principal toast, proposed by Mr. Gladstone, was the Queen.

The principal officials had assembled in Westminster Hall at 10 o'clock.

The leak suggests that Mr. Obama remains blind to the principal cause of his foreign policy woes.

He is far below Halbert in position, and that is the principal thing.

He recalled one event, when he was playing with a friend, Areah, when the principal came outside and found them.

In an ultra-Orthodox enclave of upstate New York, a former student has accused a principal of sex acts.

The Marquis made a round of the principal of those mansions.

And let our principal and most trusty friends named in my last know that I do.