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.
