Word.ws English Dictionary

first principles

first principles is the plural of first principle.

Meaning of first principle

Noun

first principle (plural first principles)

  1. A basic, foundational proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption.

Noun

first principles pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) The set of basic statements on which a method, theory, or organisation is founded.
    • The rules and regulations don't answer the question. First principles are required.
    • This book is aimed at any interested intelligent person, typically one with little background in syntax research. This is intended as a primer for smart people, possibly from other fields, who may be interested in human language and don’t know much about its structure. You may have heard that...2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Introduction” (chapter 1), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 18–19

Questions about first principles

What does first principles mean?
First principles means the set of basic statements on which a method, theory, or organisation is founded.
What is first principles the plural of?
First principles is the plural of first principle.
What part of speech is first principles?
First principles is a noun.

Words near first principles in the dictionary

  1. first port of call
  2. first ports of call
  3. first position
  4. First Presidency
  5. first principle
  6. first principles
  7. first quarter
  8. first quarters
  9. first rain
  10. first rains
  11. first rate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: first principles (page history and authors); first principle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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