Word.ws English Dictionary

principial

principial adjective: elementary; fundamental.

Adjective

principial (comparative more principial, superlative most principial)

  1. Elementary; fundamental.
    • On account of heat being kindled by the attrition of bodies, reject a principial nature. By principial nature I mean that which exists in the nature of things positively, and not as the effect of any antecedent nature.1620, Francis Bacon, Novum Organum
    • My only aim will be to trace the dislocating work of the two conditions that ensue, namely, the principial condition over which the foundation presides and the ground as the originary condition.2003, Reiner Schürmann, Broken Hegemonies, page 274

Forms of principial

comparativemore principial
superlativemost principial

Origin of principial

Probably a learned borrowing from Latin prī̆ncipiālis. By surface analysis, principia + -al.

Questions about principial

What does principial mean?
Principial means elementary; fundamental.
What part of speech is principial?
Principial is an adjective.

Words near principial in the dictionary

  1. principes
  2. principessa
  3. principessas
  4. principi
  5. principia
  6. principial
  7. principiant
  8. principiate
  9. principiated
  10. principiates
  11. principiating

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: principial (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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