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Principle vs Precept - What's the difference?

principle | precept |

In obsolete terms the difference between principle and precept

is that principle is a beginning while precept is to teach by precepts.

As nouns the difference between principle and precept

is that principle is a fundamental assumption while precept is a rule or principle, especially one governing personal conduct.

As verbs the difference between principle and precept

is that principle is to equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet or rule of conduct while precept is to teach by precepts.

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

    Related terms

    * prince * principal * principality * principled

    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

    * *

    precept

    English

    (wikipedia precept)

    Alternative forms

    * (obsolete)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A rule or principle, especially one governing personal conduct.
  • * 2006 : , The Gift of Language
  • ** I need hardly point out that Pinker doesn't really believe anything of what he writes, at least if example is stronger evidence of belief than precept .
  • * 1891 :
  • ** He found a people in the extreme of barbarism living in caves, feeding upon the bloody flesh of animals they killed in hunting; he taught them many things, so that by his example, and for generations after he left them by his precepts , they advanced to high civilization.
  • (legal) A written command, especially a demand for payment.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To teach by precepts.
    • (Francis Bacon)

    Anagrams

    * ----