## Meanings
1. A basic truth or rule that explains how something works or guides how you act.
2. A personal rule about right and wrong that guides your behaviour.
3. A scientific law describing how something in nature behaves.

## Examples
- The teacher explained the basic principles of democracy.
- She refused the bribe because it went against her principles.
- The principle of conservation of mass states that matter is not created or destroyed.

## Derived Forms
- antiprinciple
- counterprinciple
- metaprinciple
- principled
- principlism
- principlist
- q-principle
- r-principle
- subprinciple
- unprinciple

## Related Forms
- prince
- principal
- principality

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: *keh₂p-
- Root: principle
- Root: principe
- Root: prīncipium
- Root: *preh₂-

## Etymology
From Middle English principle, from Old French principe, from Latin prīncipium (“beginning, foundation”), from prīnceps (“first”). By surface analysis, prīmus (“first”) + -ceps (“catcher”); the former ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *preh₂- (“before”); see also prince.

## AI Etymology
Principle comes from Middle English principle, from Old French principe, from Latin prīncipium (“beginning, foundation”), from prīnceps (“first”). By surface analysis, prīmus (“first”) + -ceps (“catcher”); the former ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *preh₂- (“before”); see also prince. In present-day English it covers a basic truth or rule that explains how something works or guides how you act, a personal rule about right and wrong that guides your behaviour, and a scientific law describing how something in nature behaves. The wider family includes derived forms such as antiprinciple, counterprinciple, metaprinciple, principled, principlism and related forms such as prince, principal, principality.

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