Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell principal

hear itprin·ci·pal/'prɪnsəpəl/nounSchwa and roots

What it means: The educator who has executive authority for a school.

In a sentence: The principal of the school gave us a big smile.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as principle or principel.

Sounds like, but is not: principle. Same sound, different spelling and meaning.

Same family: vice-principal, headteacher, administrator, principalship, school-leader. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Principal comes from Latin 'principalem,' meaning 'chief' or 'most important.' That’s why the school principal is sometimes called the “principal teacher,” the person with the main authority in the school.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

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