principal

Meanings

Adjective

• Primary; most important; first level in importance.
• Of or relating to a prince; princely.

Noun

• The money originally invested or loaned, on which basis interest and returns are calculated.
• The chief administrator of a school.
• The chief executive and chief academic officer of a university or college.
• 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.
• The primary participant in a crime.
• A partner or owner of a business.
• A diapason, a type of organ stop on a pipe organ.
• 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.
• The first two long feathers of a hawk's wing.
• One of the turrets or pinnacles of waxwork and tapers with which the posts and centre of a funeral hearse were formerly crowned
• An essential point or rule; a principle.
• A dancer at the highest rank within a professional dance company, particularly a ballet company.
• A security principal.

Related

Similar words

• chief, main, primary
• headteacher , headmaster , headmistress
• dean
• client
• ringleader
• proprietor
• diapason

Origin

• From Middle English principal, from Old French principal, from Latin prīncipālis.