The difference between Primary and Principal

When used as nouns, primary means a primary election, whereas principal means the money originally invested or loaned, on which basis interest and returns are calculated.

When used as adjectives, primary means the first in a group or series, whereas principal means primary.

Primary is also verb with the meaning: to knock out an incumbent in the primary election, typically used referring to a non-incumbent challenger.

check bellow for the other definitions of Primary and Principal

  1. Primary as an adjective:

    The first in a group or series.

    Examples:

    "Children attend primary school, and teenagers attend secondary school."

  2. Primary as an adjective:

    Main; principal; placed ahead of others.

    Examples:

    "Preferred stock has primary claim on dividends, ahead of common stock."

  3. Primary as an adjective (geology):

    Earliest formed; fundamental.

  4. Primary as an adjective (chemistry):

    Illustrating, possessing, or characterized by, some quality or property in the first degree; having undergone the first stage of substitution or replacement.

  5. Primary as an adjective (medicine):

    Relating to the place where a disorder or disease started to occur.

  6. Primary as an adjective (medicine):

    Relating to day-to-day care provided by health professionals such as nurses, general practitioners, dentists etc.

  1. Primary as a noun:

    A primary election; a preliminary election to select a political candidate of a political party.

  2. Primary as a noun:

    The first year of grade school.

  3. Primary as a noun:

    A base or fundamental component; something that is irreducible.

  4. Primary as a noun:

    The most massive component of a gravitationally bound system, such as a planet in relation to its satellites.

  5. Primary as a noun:

    A primary school.

  6. Primary as a noun (ornithology):

    Any flight feather attached to the manus (hand) of a bird.

  7. Primary as a noun:

    A primary colour.

  8. Primary as a noun (medicine):

    Primary site of disease; original location or source of the disease.

    Examples:

    "unknown primary'"

    "most common primaries'"

  9. Primary as a noun (electronics):

    A directly driven inductive coil, as in a transformer or induction motor that is magnetically coupled to a secondary

  1. Primary as a verb (US, transitive):

    To knock out an incumbent in the primary election, typically used referring to a non-incumbent challenger.

  2. Primary as a verb (US, intransitive):

    To take part in a primary election.

  3. Primary as a verb (US, politics):

    To challenge an incumbent sitting politician for their political party's endorsement to run for re-election, through running a challenger campaign in a primary election

  1. Principal as an adjective:

    Primary; most important.

    Examples:

    "Smith is the principal architect of this design."

    "The principal cause of the failure was poor planning."

  2. Principal as an adjective (obsolete, Latinism):

    Of or relating to a prince; princely.

    Examples:

    "rfquotek Edmund Spenser"

  1. Principal as a noun (finance, uncountable):

    The money originally invested or loaned, on which basis interest and returns are calculated.

    Examples:

    "A portion of your mortgage payment goes to reduce the principal, and the rest covers interest."

  2. Principal as a noun (North America, Australia, New Zealand):

    The chief administrator of a school.

  3. Principal as a noun (UK, Canada):

    The chief executive and chief academic officer of a university or college.

  4. Principal as a noun (legal):

    A legal person that authorizes another (the agent) to act on one′s behalf; or on whose behalf an agent or gestor in a negotiorum gestio acts.

    Examples:

    "When an attorney represents a client, the client is the principal who permits the attorney, the client′s agent, to act on the client′s behalf."

    "My principal sells metal shims."

  5. Principal as a noun (legal):

    The primary participant in a crime.

  6. Principal as a noun (North America):

    A partner or owner of a business.

  7. Principal as a noun (music):

    A diapason, a type of organ stop on a pipe organ.

  8. Principal as a noun (architecture, engineering):

    The construction that gives shape and strength to a roof, generally a truss of timber or iron; or, loosely, the most important member of a piece of framing.

  9. Principal as a noun:

    The first two long feathers of a hawk's wing.

    Examples:

    "rfquotek Spenser"

    "rfquotek J. H. Walsh"

  10. Principal as a noun:

    One of the turrets or pinnacles of waxwork and tapers with which the posts and centre of a funeral hearse were formerly crowned.

    Examples:

    "rfquotek Oxf. Gloss."

  11. Principal as a noun (obsolete):

    An essential point or rule; a principle.

  12. Principal as a noun:

    A dancer at the highest rank within a professional dance company, particularly a ballet company.

  13. Principal as a noun (computing):

    A security principal.

Compare words:

Compare with synonyms and related words: