| principal | |
| 1. adj. Primary; most important. | |
| Smith is the principal architect of this design. | |
| The principal cause of the failure was poor planning. | |
| 2. adj. (obsolete, Latinism) Of or relating to a prince; princely. | |
| 3. subst. (finance) The money originally invested or loaned, on which basis interest and returns are calculated. | |
| A portion of your mortgage payment goes to reduce the principal, and the rest covers interest. | |
| 4. subst. (North America, Australia, New Zealand) The chief administrator of a school. | |
| 5. subst. (Canada) The chief executive and chief academic officer of a university or college. | |
| 6. subst. (legal) A legal person that authorizes another (the agent) to act on one′s behalf; or on whose behalf an agent or gestor in a negotiorum gestio acts. | |
| 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. | |
| My principal sells metal shims. | |
| 7. subst. (legal) The primary participant in a crime. | |
| 8. subst. (North America) A partner or owner of a business. | |
| 9. subst. (music) A diapason, a type of organ stop on a pipe organ. | |
| 10. subst. (architecture, engineering) 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. | |
| 11. subst. The first two long feathers of a hawk's wing. | |
| 12. subst. One of the turrets or pinnacles of waxwork and tapers with which the posts and centre of a funeral hearse were formerly crowned. | |
| 13. subst. (obsolete) An essential point or rule; a principle. | |
| 14. subst. A dancer at the highest rank within a professional dance company, particularly a ballet company. | |
| 15. subst. (computing) A security principal. | |
