Word.ws English Dictionary

principality

Syllables: prin·ci·pal·i·ty/pɹɪnsɪˈpælɪti/

principality noun: a region or sovereign nation headed by a prince or princess.

Noun

principality (countable and uncountable, plural principalities)

  1. (countable) A region or sovereign nation headed by a prince or princess.
    • At this time Russia consisted of a dozen or so principalities, which were frequently at war with one another.1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society, published 2010, page 14
    • The principality of Freedonia (www.freedonia.org), an earnest collective of secessionist superlibertarians based in Boston, falls into the first category.2000 March, Alex Blumberg, “It's Good to Be King”, in WIRED, archived from the original on 24 Mar 2005
  2. (countable) A spiritual being, specifically in Christian angelology, the third lowest level of angels, ranked above archangels and below powers.
  3. (obsolete) The state of being a prince or ruler; sovereignty, absolute authority.
  4. (archaic) The state of being principal; pre-eminence.

Proper noun capitalized: Principality

the Principality

  1. Wales
    • The first information I have of a sermon at an association, in the Principality, is in the letter of 1703, which appoints one to be preached the following year.1795, Joshua THOMAS (of Leominster.), A History of the Baptist Association in Wales, from the year 1650, to the year 1790, etc, page 77
    • During the last decade or so Wales has attracted about 10 per cent of British holiday-makers. According to a sample survey carried out in 1961, the Principality accommodated 4 million people in that year who spent a total of 28-million holiday nights.1967, Transactions - Institute of British Geographers
  2. Alternative letter-case form of principality; any of the actual extant principalities.
    • The affair led to a crisis in relations between France and the Principality, with the French Government overruling Prince Rainier by refusing to extend the mandate of Monaco's Chief Prosecutor2002, Eur, Western Europe 2003, Psychology Press →ISBN, page 451

principality meaning in Hindi, Arabic, Indonesian and Persian

principality in Hindi

region
राज्य rājya, रियासत riyāsat, हुकूमत hukūmat

principality in Arabic

region
إمَارَة ʔimāra

principality in Indonesian

region
kepangeranan, keharyapatihan

principality in Persian

region
پرَنسنشین perans-nešin
More languagesFewer languages
principality in Vietnamese
công quốc

Examples of principality in a sentence

  • The ten Circles of the Holy Roman Empire were those principalities or provinces which had seats in the German Diet.
  • Britain would become “a hostile principality, built on social, fiscal and environmental deregulation.”
  • This movement, partly religious and partly political, gave rise to the independent principality of the vladikas.

All 10 example sentences with principality

Forms of principality

pluralprincipalities

Plural of principality: principalities

Origin of principality

From Middle English principalte, principalite, from Anglo-Norman principalté, Middle French principalté, from Late Latin prīncipālitās, from Latin prīncipālis (“principal”) + -tās. Equivalent to principal + -ity.

From the mistaken belief that the Prince of Wales is the country's head of state; the historical Principality of Wales only made up a portion of the country of Wales.

Words formed from principality

Phrases with principality

Questions about principality

What does principality mean?
Principality means a region or sovereign nation headed by a prince or princess.
What is principality in Hindi?
Principality in Hindi is राज्य (rājya), रियासत (riyāsat), हुकूमत (hukūmat). See Principality meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is principality?
Principality can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce principality?
Principality is pronounced /pɹɪnsɪˈpælɪti/.
What is the plural of principality?
The plural of principality is principalities.

Words near principality in the dictionary

  1. principalisation
  2. principalism
  3. principalist
  4. principalists
  5. principalities
  6. principality
  7. Principality of Abkhazia
  8. Principality of Albania
  9. Principality of Andorra
  10. Principality of Asturias
  11. Principality of Guria

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: principality (page history and authors); Principality (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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Cite this entry: “principality.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/principality. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.