principal parts

Noun

principal part (plural principal parts)

1. (plural-normally) Any of the forms of a word which contain its stem(s) in the simplest form, or such a form that, when taken with all the other principal parts (showing various inflections), allows the entire paradigm to be derived.
   • Holonyms: declension, conjugation
2. (obsolete, plural-normally) Any one of however many parts of speech regarded as the most fundamental or indispensable.
   • Holonym: part of speech
   1. (obsolete, plural-normally, rare) The noun, verb, or adverb.
      • For the underſtanding of this, we muſt conceive the order of Nature. For whatſoever we find in the whole World, are either Things, Actions, or Circumſtances: The Things are known before their Actions, and Actions firſt to be conſidered, before the Circumſtances.
        Hence it is that the Speech that is...1677, John Clarke, The Second Praxis Dialogical of the Latine Syntax, Tranſlated Grammatically into Engliſh, for the uſe and benefit of Grammar Schools. (pages 189–246), in Dux Grammaticus Tyronem...
   2. (obsolete, plural-normally) The noun or the verb.
      • The principal parts of a ſentence are words, without which abſolutely no ſentence can be made. And are both a ſubſtantive ſignifying that, which doeth, ſuffereth, or is, and a verb ſignifying to do, to ſuffer, or to be.1678, “A. B. Philo-Muſ.”, Rudiments of the Latine Grammar, London: Dorman Newman, Of SYNTAX., page 33
3. A polynomial approximation of a power series, made up of monomials whose indices lie in the Newton diagram of the power series and which occur with the same coefficients as in the original power series.
4. The portion of a Laurent series that has negative exponents.

See all 7 meanings of principal part