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y, character, importance, or degree; most considerable or important; chief; main; as, the principal officers of a Government; the principal men of a state; the principal productions of a country; the principal arguments in a case. Wisdom is the principal thing. Prov. iv. 7.

wer; hence, superiority; predominance; high, or the highest, station. Sir P. Sidney. Your principalities shall come down, even the crown of your glory. Jer. xiii. 18. The prerogative and principality above everything else. Jer. Taylor.

In a principal manner; primarily; above all; chiefly; mainly.

The quality of being principal.

nate; aiding in a secondary way; additional; connected as an incident or subordinate to a principal; contributing or contributory; said of persons and things, and, when of persons, usually in a bad sense; as, he was accessory to the riot; accessory sounds in music.

l to a given right line, cuts the perspective plane; so called to distinguish it from the principal point, or point of view, where a line drawn from the eye perpendicular to the perspective plane meets this plane. -- Accidental lights (Paint.), secondary lights; effects of light other than ordinary daylight, such as t…

ing that attends as a circumstance, or which is added to give greater completeness to the principal thing, or by way of ornament, or for the sake of symmetry. Specifically: (Mus.)

An associate in the commission of a crime; a participator in an offense, whether a principal or an accessory. "And thou, the cursed accomplice of his treason." Johnson.

ncrease, profit, or damage, especially as the produce of money lent. "Interest accrues to principal." Abbott. The great and essential advantages accruing to society from the freedom of the press. Junius.

A performance of part of a play; one of the principal divisions of a play or dramatic work in which a certain definite part of the action is completed.

A key or scale closely related to another as principal; a relative or attendant key. [R.] See Attendant keys, under Attendant, a.

egiment, in the details of regimental and garrison duty. Adjutant general (a) (Mil.), the principal staff officer of an army, through whom the commanding general receives communications and issues military orders. In the U. S. army he is brigadier general. (b) (Among the Jesuits), one of a select number of fathers, who…

An ingredient, in a prescription, which aids or modifies the action of the principal ingredient.

cottish bar in Edinburgh. -- Lord advocate (Scot.), the public prosecutor of crimes, and principal crown lawyer. -- Judge advocate. See under Judge.

The office of an agent, or factor; the relation between a principal and his agent; business of one intrusted with the concerns of another.

pound cordial, in the form of a confection, deriving its name from the kermes insect, its principal ingredient.

A figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal subject is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances. The real subject is thus kept out of view, and we are left to collect the intentions of the writer or speaker by the resemblance of the secondary to the primary subject.…

One of the radical zones of echinoderms, along which run the principal nerves, blood vessels, and water tubes. These zones usually bear rows of locomotive suckers or tentacles, which protrude from regular pores. In star fishes they occupy the grooves along the under side of the rays.

A syllabus, or table of the principal heads of a discourse, disposed in their natural order.

An administration subordinate to, and in aid of, the primary or principal administration of an estate.