Meaning

• 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."

• The chief administrator of a school.

• The chief executive and chief academic officer of a university or college.

• A legal person that authorizes another (the agent) to act on their behalf; or on whose behalf an agent or gestor in a negotiorum gestio acts.

  "My principal sells metal shims."

• The primary participant in a crime.

• A partner or owner of a business.

• A diapason, a type of organ stop on a pipe organ.

• 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.

• The first two long feathers of a hawk's wing.

• One of the turrets or pinnacles of waxwork and tapers with which the posts and centre of a funeral hearse were formerly crowned.

• An essential point or rule; a principle.

• A dancer at the highest rank within a professional dance company, particularly a ballet company.

• A security principal.

Meaning

• Primary; most important; first level in importance.

  "Smith is the principal architect of this design."

• (Latinism) Of or relating to a prince; princely.