1. A basic truth, law, or assumption: the principles of democracy.
2. A rule or standard, especially of good behavior: a man of principle.
3. the collectivity of moral or ethical standards or judgments: a decision based on principle rather than expediency.
4. A fixed or predetermined policy or mode of action.
5. A basic or essential quality or element determining intrinsic nature or characteristic behavior: the principle of self-preservation.
6. A rule or law concerning the functioning of natural phenomena or mechanical processes: the principle of jet propulsion.
7. chemistry one of the elements that compose a substance, especially one that gives some special quality or effect.
8. A basic source. see usage note at principal.
9. in principle with regard to the basics: an idea that is acceptable in principle.
10. on principle according to or because of principle.

1. A fundamental assumption.
2. A rule used to choose among solutions to a problem.
3. moral rule or aspect.
4. A rule or law of nature, or the basic idea on how the laws of nature are applied.
5. A fundamental essence, particularly one producing a given quality.
6. A beginning.
7. to equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet or rule of conduct.

1. beginning; commencement.
2. A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.
3. an original faculty or endowment.
4. A fundamental truth; a comprehensive law or doctrine, from which others are derived, or on which others are founded; a general truth; an elementary proposition; a maxim; an axiom; a postulate.
5. A settled rule of action; a governing law of conduct; an opinion or belief which exercises a directing influence on the life and behavior; a rule (usually, a right rule) of conduct consistently directing one's actions.
6. any original inherent constituent which characterizes a substance, or gives it its essential properties, and which can usually be separated by analysis; -- applied especially to drugs, plant extracts, etc.
7. to equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet, or rule of conduct, good or ill.

1. to establish or fix in certain principles; impress with any tenet or belief, whether good or ill: used chiefly in the past participle.
2. beginning; commencement.
3. cause, in the widest sense; that by which anything is in any way ultimately determined or regulated.
4. an original faculty or endowment of the mind: as, the principle of observation and comparison.
5. A truth which is evident and general; a truth comprehending many subordinate truths; a law on which others are founded, or from which others are derived: as, the principles of morality, of equity, of government, etc. in mathematical physics a principle commonly means a very widely useful theorem.
6. that which is professed or accepted as a law of action or a rule of conduct; one of the fundamental doctrines or tenets of a system: as, the principles of the stoics or of the epicureans; hence, a right rule of conduct; in general, equity; uprightness: as, a man of principle.
7. in chem.: A component part; an element: as, the constituent principles of bodies.
8. A substance on the presence of which certain qualities, common to a number of bodies, depend. see proximate principles, under proximate.
9. in patent law, a law of nature, or a general property of matter, a rule of abstract science.
10. a certain important proposition concerning the equation
11. see the adjectives.

1. a basic truth or law or assumption
2. a basic generalization that is accepted as true and that can be used as a basis for reasoning or conduct
3. a rule or standard especially of good behavior
4. (law) an explanation of the fundamental reasons (especially an explanation of the working of some device in terms of laws of nature)
5. rule of personal conduct
6. a rule or law concerning a natural phenomenon or the function of a complex system