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What is the difference between principle and element?

principle | element |

As nouns the difference between principle and element

is that principle is a fundamental assumption while element is one of the simplest or essential parts or principles of which anything consists, or upon which the constitution or fundamental powers of anything are based.

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.

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.

    element

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • One of the simplest or essential parts or principles of which anything consists, or upon which the constitution or fundamental powers of anything are based.
  • * (Benjamin Jowett) (1817-1893) ((Thucydides))
  • The simplicity which is so large an element in a noble nature was laughed to scorn.
  • # (label) Any one of the simplest chemical substances that cannot be decomposed in a chemical reaction or by any chemical means and made up of atoms all having the same number of protons.
  • # One of the four basic building blocks of matter in theories of ancient philosophers and alchemists: water, earth, fire, and air.
  • # (label) A required aspect or component of a cause of action. A deed is regarded a violation of law only if each element can be proved.
  • # (label) One of the objects in a set.
  • A small part of the whole.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1927, author= F. E. Penny
  • , chapter=4, title= Pulling the Strings , passage=The case was that of a murder. It had an element of mystery about it, however, which was puzzling the authorities. A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff.}}
  • Atmospheric forces such as strong winds and rains.
  • A place or state of being that an individual or object is better suited towards.
  • The bread and wine taken at Holy Communion.
  • A group of people within a larger group having a particular common characteristic.
  • A short form of heating element, a component in electrical equipment, often in the form of a coil, having a high resistance, thereby generating heat when a current is passed through it.
  • (label) One of the conceptual objects in a markup language, usually represented in text by a matching pair of tags.
  • * 2011 , Richard Wagner, Creating Web Pages All-in-One For Dummies
  • The div element was introduced into HTML as a solution to the layout problem.

    Synonyms

    * (in chemistry) chemical element * (in set theory) member

    Derived terms

    * chemical element * data element * heating element

    See also

    * atom