Meanings
- pluralplural of first principle
- pluralplural onlyThe set of basic statements on which a method, theory, or organisation is founded.
The rules and regulations don't answer the question. First principles are required.
2 more examples
This book is aimed at any interested intelligent person, typically one with little background in syntax research. This is intended as a primer for smart people, possibly from other fields, who may be interested in human language and don’t know much about its structure. You may have heard that sentences are tree-structures: What does that even mean? Here, I break it down and explain it from first principles, in what I hope is an accessible way.
2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Introduction” (chapter 1), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 18–19Mountainhead plays out less like a drama between four tenuously connected, very rich friends, and more like a random word generator of tech and finance bro jargon – decel (deceleration, as in AI), p(doom) (the probability of an AI apocalypse), first principles.
[2025 June 2, Adrian Horton, “Tech-bro satire Mountainhead is an insufferable disappointment”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 18 Jul 2025
Synonyms & antonyms
nounthe elementary stages of any subject (usually plural)
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Cite this entry
first principles. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/first%20principles
“first principles.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/first%20principles. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “first principles,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/first%20principles.
Source: first principles on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.