principle
/ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/ noun B1- A fundamental assumption, fundamental law or guiding belief. · We need some sort of principles to reason from.
- A rule used to choose among solutions to a problem. · The principle of least privilege holds that a process should only receive the permissions it needs.
- Moral rule or aspect. · I don't doubt your principles.· You are clearly a person of principle.
- A rule or law of nature, or the basic idea on how the laws of nature are applied. · Bernoulli's principle· The Pauli Exclusion Principle prevents two fermions from occupying the same state.
- A fundamental essence, particularly one producing a given quality.
- A chemical compound within plant or animal tissue that is characteristic of it and more or less peculiar to it, such that it defines the character of that tissue from a human viewpoint (as for example nicotine in tobacco). · the active principle
- A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.
- An original faculty or endowment.
Plural principles
From the library
“True,” replied the marquise, without wincing in the slightest degree at the tragic remembrance thus called up; “but bear in mind, if you please, that our respective parents underwent persecution and proscription from diametrically opposite principles; in proof of which I may remark, that while my family remained among the staunchest adherents of the exiled princes, your father lost no time in joining the new government; and that while the Citizen Noirtier was a Girondin, the Count Noirtier became a senator.”
For my own part, I have laid aside even the name of my father, and altogether disown his political principles.
You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger security for happiness.”
All I ask is, that Villefort will be firm and inflexible for the future in his political principles.
Other matches
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