principal
37
4.1
- noun
- /ˈprɪnsəpəl/
- Specialized
:
capital
- No, no, see, but I'd pay you back the principal and interest.
- principal and interest
- payment of principal
But also you got principal pay down during that time.
- But also you got principal pay down during that time.
- You have to make very little to almost no principal payments.
- When interest rates or yields on bonds go down, it means the face the the market value, the principal value of the bond goes up just like apartments.
- So if we're not able to raise interest rates because we can't afford it, it's not just the interest, it's the principal.
- Then the correct thing to do is actually look at your principal pay down.
Examples
-
After five years of fearless investing, the principal has grown by about two thousand dollars.
Fiction book (1995) -
As long as I pay the bank, every single month I pay the bank, my principal balance goes down.
-
And so your payment is paying off principal mostly.
-
So it's all principal and interest all at once.
-
So it shows the principal for each month.
-
But also you got principal pay down during that time.
-
You need to start paying off the principal, my friend.
-
The principal is the amount of money that you want to borrow.
-
In 1985, South Africa stopped paying principal and continued paying only interest on $14 billion of short-term debts.
Academic text (1990) -
When you invest in a savings account, the interest is calculated based on the principal amount you deposit.
Synonyms
1
7.6
The main amount of money in an investment, not the interest
Original amount of money someone lends or invests that people pay interest on
Compounds
- Specialized
A line of numbers in a square table that runs from the top left to the bottom right
- Specialized
Original amount of money someone lends or invests that people pay interest on
- Specialized
An invisible straight line through a lens or mirror center that light follows without bending
How Much
Surface Forms
Morphology
principal = princip + al
The adjective-forming suffix '-al' attaches to the combining form 'princip-' (not a standalone modern English word), so learners cannot reliably derive the financial sense from familiar English components.
Etymology
Principal for money comes from the Latin root princip- meaning 'first' or 'beginning', so it is the original 'first' amount you borrow or invest on which interest is calculated.