different between opinion vs principle

English

Etymology

From Middle English opinion, opinioun, from Anglo-Norman and Middle French opinion, from Latin op?ni?, from op?nor (“to opine”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??p?nj?n/
• Rhymes: -?nj?n
• Hyphenation: opin?ion

Noun

opinion (plural opinions)

1. A belief, judgment or perspective that a person has formed, either through objective or subjective reasoning, about a topic, issue, person or thing.
   • 1891, Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

     Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

2. The judgment or sentiment which the mind forms of persons or things; estimation.
   • 1606, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, I. vii. 32:

     I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people.

   • Friendship […] gives a man a peculiar right and claim to the good opinion of his friend.

3. (obsolete) Favorable estimation; hence, consideration; reputation; fame; public sentiment or esteem.
   • 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, V. iv. 47:

     Thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion.
4. (obsolete) Obstinacy in holding to one's belief or impression; opiniativeness; conceitedness.
   • 1590, William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, V. i. 5:

     Your reasons at / dinner have been sharp and sententious, pleasant / without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious / without impudency, learned without opinion, and / strange without heresy.

5. The formal decision, or expression of views, of a judge, an umpire, a doctor, or other party officially called upon to consider and decide upon a matter or point submitted.
6. (European Union law) a judicial opinion delivered by an Advocate General to the European Court of Justice where he or she proposes a legal solution to the cases for which the court is responsible

Derived terms

Related terms

• opination
• opine
• opinionated

Translations

See also

• fact

Verb

opinion (third-person singular simple present opinions, present participle opinioning, simple past and past participle opinioned)

1. (transitive, archaic) To have or express as an opinion.
   • 1658, Sir Thomas Browne, The Graden of Cyrus (Folio Society 2007, p. 166)

     But if (as some opinion) King Ahasuerus were Artaxerxes Mnemon [...], our magnified Cyrus was his second Brother

Translations

References

• opinion at OneLook Dictionary Search
• opinion in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• opinion in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Esperanto

Noun

opinion

1. accusative singular of opinio

French

Etymology

From Middle French opinion, from Latin op?ni?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?.pi.nj??/

Noun

opinion f (plural opinions)

1. opinion (thought, estimation)

Derived terms

Further reading

• “opinion” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Middle French

Etymology

From Latin op?ni?.

Noun

opinion f (plural opinions)

1. opinion (thought, estimation)

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Latin op?ni?, via French opinion

Noun

opinion m (definite singular opinionen, indefinite plural opinioner, definite plural opinionene)

1. (public) opinion

Derived terms

• folkeopinion

References

• “opinion” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Latin op?ni?, via French opinion

Noun

opinion m (definite singular opinionen, indefinite plural opinionar, definite plural opinionane)

1. (public) opinion

Derived terms

• folkeopinion

References

• “opinion” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Occitan

Etymology

From Latin op?ni?.

Pronunciation

Noun

opinion f (plural opinions)

1. opinion

   Synonym: vejaire

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French principe, from Latin pr?ncipium (“beginning, foundation”), from pr?nceps (“first”); see prince.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p??ns?p?l/, /?p??ns?p?l/
• Hyphenation: prin?ci?ple
• Homophone: principal

Noun

principle (plural principles)

1. A fundamental assumption or guiding belief.

   • Let us consider ‘my dog is asleep on the floor’ again. Frege thinks that this sentence can be analyzed in various different ways. Instead of treating it as expressing the application of __ is asleep on the floor to my dog, we can think of it as expressing the application of the concept
          my dog is asleep on __
     to the object
          the floor
     (see Frege 1919). Frege recognizes what is now a commonplace in the logical analysis of natural language. We can attribute more than one logical form to a single sentence. Let us call this the principle of multiple analyses. Frege does not claim that the principle always holds, but as we shall see, modern type theory does claim this.

2. A rule used to choose among solutions to a problem.

3. (sometimes pluralized) Moral rule or aspect.

   I don't doubt your principles.

   You are clearly a person of principle.

   It's the principle of the thing; I won't do business with someone I can't trust.

4. (physics) A rule or law of nature, or the basic idea on how the laws of nature are applied.

   Bernoulli's Principle

   The Pauli Exclusion Principle prevents two fermions from occupying the same state.

   The principle of the internal combustion engine

5. A fundamental essence, particularly one producing a given quality.
   • 1845, William Gregory, Outlines of Chemistry

     Cathartine is the bitter, purgative principle of senna.

6. (obsolete) A beginning.
7. A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.
   • 1663, John Tillotson, The Wisdom of Being Religious

     The soul of man is an active principle.

8. An original faculty or endowment.
   • 1828, Dugal Stewart, The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man

     those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or suffering

Usage notes

• Principle ("moral rule"), as a noun, is often confused with principal, which can be an adjective ("most important") or a noun ("school principal"). A memory aid to avoid this confusion is: "The principal alphabetic principle places A before E".

Synonyms

• (moral rule or aspect): tenet

Derived terms

Related terms

• prince
• principal
• principality

Translations

Verb

principle (third-person singular simple present principles, present participle principling, simple past and past participle principled)

1. (transitive) To equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet or rule of conduct.

   • Let an enthusiast be principled that he or his teacher is inspired.

Further reading

• principle in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• principle in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.