All 7 Uses of
principle
in
The Chrysalids
- My father's faith was bred into his bones, his principles were his sinews, and both responded to a mind richly stored with examples from the Bible, and from Nichol-son's Repentances.†
Chpt 2 *principles = basic rules or beliefs
- If our neighbours were as conscientious as ourselves, he had no doubt that their liquidations would far outnumber ours: unfortunately there were certain persons with elastic principles.†
Chpt 2
- My father had been heard to sum up his opinion by declaring that if Angus had any principles they were of such infinite width as to be a menace to the rectitude of the neighbourhood; to which Angus was reputed to have replied that Joseph Strorm was a flinty-souled pedant, and bigoted well beyond reason.†
Chpt 4
- Such shilly-shallying in an obvious case outraged my father's principles, and he personally attended to the demise of the Dakers' cat while the matter was still sub judice.†
Chpt 4
- He called for a general boycott of the owner of the Offences, speculated upon immorality in high places, hinted that some there might be expected to have a fellow-feeling for Mutants, and wound up with a peroration in which a certain official was scathed as an unprincipled hireling of unprincipled masters and the local representative of the Forces of Evil.†
Chpt 4unprincipled = lacking or not based on basic beliefsstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unprincipled means not and reverses the meaning of principled. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- He called for a general boycott of the owner of the Offences, speculated upon immorality in high places, hinted that some there might be expected to have a fellow-feeling for Mutants, and wound up with a peroration in which a certain official was scathed as an unprincipled hireling of unprincipled masters and the local representative of the Forces of Evil.†
Chpt 4
- No morals, no principles.†
Chpt 9principles = basic rules or beliefs
Definition:
a basic rule or belief
The exact meaning of principle can depend upon its context. For example:
- "our guiding principles" -- basic moral beliefs that guide decisions and behavior
- "electromagnetic principles" -- rules describing how the world works
- "She lacks principles." -- lacks moral guidelines
- "We agree in principle." -- about important basic beliefs