principal
part of speech
noun (a principal, principals); adjective (principal)
meaning for a pupil
1) The head teacher of a school, especially in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. tree →
2) As an adjective, principal means most important or main: "the principal city". tree →
3) In money, the principal is the amount you first borrow or save, before interest is added. tree →
sense in the lessons
In school life, you may be sent to the principal's office, or the principal talks at assembly. In geography, "the principal rivers" are the main rivers. In maths about money, the principal is the starting amount on which interest is worked out. Phrases: the school principal, the principal's office, principal reason, principal city.
examples
- The principal spoke to the whole school at assembly. tree →
- Our principal knows every pupil's name. tree →
- Rice is the principal food in many Asian countries. tree →
- The principal reason we were late was the traffic. tree →
- Sydney is a principal city of Australia. tree →
- The bank adds interest to the principal every year. tree →
- She became the principal of a small primary school. tree →
- The principal person in the procession was a priest. tree →
note
Homophone trap: "principal" (the head of a school, or main) and "principle" (a rule or belief, like "the principle of fairness") sound the same. A memory trick: the principal is your "pal". In the UK and Ireland people usually say "head teacher". In money maths, the principal is the starting amount: if the principal is $100 and the interest is $5, you have $105.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «principal» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.