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principle

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈprɪn.sə.pəl/, /ˈprɪn.sɪ.pəl/, US /ˈprɪn.sə.pəl/[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English princiepe, principle, borrowed from Anglo-Norman principle, a variant of principe (“origin, cause, principle”),[2][3][4] a learned borrowing of Latin principium (“beginning, origin, first part”) (plural principia “foundations, elements”),[2][5][3] from princeps (“first, chief”) (genitive principis; see prince),[5][2] from primus “first” (see prime) and the root of capere “to take”.[2] The English l apparently came by analogy with participle, manciple and principal.[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

About 1380, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius, as a law, rule or basic assumption;[5][6] the sense “origin, source, beginning”, now obsolete, is in the Wycliffe Bible about 1382.[5][6][2]

Semantic evolution

From a fundamental truth or doctrine on which others rest came a rule of right conduct, in the 1530s in Etymonline;[2] Barnhart dates the sense of moral rectitude, as in a man of principle, to 1653, in a speech by Cromwell.[5] Hoad dates the general law or rule to the 16th century and the law of nature to the 19th,[3] and the scientific sense, the general law by which a machine or instrument works, is from 1802.[2] In physics a highly general theorem or law is from 1710,[6] and a first principle, a self-evident starting point of reasoning, from 1638.[6] The chemical sense, an element or constituent of a substance, dates from the 17th century.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 1380 – a fundamental truth or rule, in Chaucer.[5][6]
  • c. 1382 – origin, source, in Wycliffe.[5]
  • 1530s – a rule of right conduct.[2]
  • 1638 – first principle.[6]
  • 1653 – moral rectitude, in Cromwell.[5]
  • 1710 – a general law in physics.[6]
  • 1802 – the principle of a machine.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A basic truth, law or assumption on which other ideas rest.
  2. A rule or standard of good conduct, or such rules as a whole: a person of principle.
  3. A law of nature by which a machine or process works.
  4. A basic quality or element that determines the nature of something; an essence.
  5. (chemistry) A constituent that gives a substance a particular quality.
  6. (Christian Science) God.

Usage notes

The AHD notes that principle and principal are still often confused; both go back to Latin princeps “first”, through principium and principalis, but principle is only a noun, while principal is an adjective and a noun for a person in charge or a capital sum.[7]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin