Prescription vs Principle - What's the difference?

prescription | principle | Related terms |

As nouns the difference between prescription and principle

is that prescription is the act of prescribing a rule, law, etc. while principle is a fundamental assumption.

As an adjective prescription

is (of a drug, etc.) only available with a physician or nurse practitioner's written prescription.

As a verb principle is

to equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet or rule of conduct.

prescription

English

(wikipedia prescription)

Alternative forms

* (archaic)

Noun

(en noun)

(legal) The act of prescribing a rule, law, etc. .

"Jurisdiction to prescribe " is a state's authority to make its laws applicable to certain persons or activities. -- Richard G. Alexander, Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996: Congress exceeds its jurisdiction to prescribe law. Washington and Lee Law Review, 1997.

(legal) A period of time within which a right must be exercised, unless the right is extinguished.

The prescription governing the victim’s right to enter a charge shall be interrupted by virtue of section 95 of the Criminal Code.

(medicine) A written order, as by a physician or nurse practitioner, for the administration of a medicine or other intervention. See also scrip.

The surgeon wrote a prescription for a pain killer and physical therapy.

(medicine) The prescription medicine or intervention so prescribed.

The pharmacist gave her a bottle containing her prescription .

(ophthalmology) The formal description of the lens geometry needed for spectacles, etc. .

The optician followed the optometrist's prescription for her new eyeglasses.

A piece of advice.

"Early to bed and early to rise" is a prescription for a healthy lifestyle.

Adjective

(head)

(of a drug, etc. ) only available with a physician or nurse practitioner's written prescription

Many powerful pain killers are prescription drugs in the U.S.

Noun

(f)

principle

English

Noun

(en noun)

A fundamental assumption.

* {{quote-web, date=2011-07-20, author=Edwin Mares, site=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, title= Propositional Functions

, accessdate = 2012-07-15}}

Let us consider ‘my dog is asleep on the floor’ again. Frege thinks that this sentence can be analyzed in various different ways. Instead of treating it as expressing the application of __ is asleep on the floor'' to ''my dog'', we can think of it as expressing the application of the concept
''my dog is asleep on __''
to the object
''the floor''
(see Frege 1919). Frege recognizes what is now a commonplace in the logical analysis of natural language. ''We can attribute more than one logical form to a single sentence . Let us call this the principle of multiple analyses . Frege does not claim that the principle always holds, but as we shall see, modern type theory does claim this.

A rule used to choose among solutions to a problem.

(usually, in the plural) Moral rule or aspect.

(physics) A rule or law of nature, or the basic idea on how the laws of nature are applied.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Sarah Glaz

, title= Ode to Prime Numbers , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles , attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.}}

A fundamental essence, particularly one producing a given quality.

* Gregory

Cathartine is the bitter, purgative principle of senna.

(obsolete) A beginning.

* (Edmund Spenser)

Doubting sad end of principle unsound.

A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.

* Tillotson

The soul of man is an active principle .

An original faculty or endowment.

* Stewart

those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or suffering

Usage notes

Principle is always a noun ("moral rule"), but it is often confused with (principal), which can be an adjective ("most important") or a noun ("school principal"). Consult both definitions if in doubt. Incorrect usage: * He is the principle musician in the band * She worked ten years as school principle A mnemonic to avoid this confusion is "The principal'' alphabetic ''principle'' places ''A'' before ''E ".

Synonyms

* (moral rule or aspect) tenet

Derived terms

* agreement in principle * anthropic principle * Aufbau principle * Bernoulli's principle * correspondence principle * cosmological principle * Dilbert principle * dormitive principle * equivalence principle * extractive principle * first principles * Huygens' principle * IBM Pollyanna Principle * Le Chatelier's principle * Mach's principle * matter of principle * Matthew principle * Mitchell principle * on principle * Pareto principle * Pauli exclusion principle * Peter principle * pigeonhole principle * precautionary principle * principle of least action * principle of substitutivity * principled stance * programming principle * reciprocity principle * strong equivalence principle * superposition principle * uncertainty principle * verifiability principle

Verb

To equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet or rule of conduct.

* L'Estrange

Governors should be well principled .

* Locke

Let an enthusiast be principled that he or his teacher is inspired.

External links

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