Definition of principled in English:

adjective

• 1(of a person or their behaviour) acting in accordance with morality and showing recognition of right and wrong.

  ‘a principled politician’

  More example sentences

  • ‘We must have principled leaders who define all of life by principles and not expediency.’
  • ‘He is an independent minded and principled man, who is very different from most private eye characters.’
  • ‘Passionate and principled democrats were slow to recognise the dangers posed by totalitarianism 60 years ago.’
  • ‘When you must make decisions about marriages, you are obliged to be consistent and principled.’
  • ‘As a result, his former image as a political operator was replaced by that of a principled leader.’
  • ‘Particular mention should be made of Mike Kelly, who remains the most principled man it's ever been my good fortune to meet.’
  • ‘I respect her, because at least she is principled - she believes in what she has put up here.’
  • ‘Duff sometimes behaved like a cad to his women; in politics, he was a model of principled behaviour.’
  • ‘Little Women is a cheerful, wholesome account of the daily life of a highly principled family.’
  • ‘They showed that far from being apathetic, they are principled, dynamic and determined to make a difference.’
  • ‘If he was principled at all and believed that these things should be done, he would have spoken out.’
  • ‘Kevin was principled, courageous, incorruptible, unselfish and a man of great integrity.’
  • ‘He saw him as a principled man who openly spoke out his thoughts on any issue of the nation, but never wishing to malign or discredit others.’
  • ‘He was one of the very few people of principled honesty that I had met, thus becoming an inspiration to me, and will be deeply missed.’
  • ‘How can you ever again position yourself as a principled candidate in this election?’
  • ‘What a doughty, principled fighter for pensioners that McLennan is.’
  • ‘The welcome sign of a principled politician is the desire to risk everything for change.’
  • ‘More specifically, toward whom should he have looked as an example, this deeply moral and principled man?’
  • ‘He's a pretty principled guy and isn't interested in the money - which is just as well because we're not paying him.’
  • ‘Whistleblowers are highly principled people who are in the job because they thought they could do it in an ethical manner.’

  Synonyms

  moral, ethical, good, virtuous, righteous, upright, upstanding, high-minded, right-minded, proper, correct, honourable, honest, just, noble, incorruptible, anti-corruption, scrupulous, conscientious, respectable, decent

  View synonyms

• 2(of a system or method) based on a given set of rules.

  ‘a coherent and principled approach’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The point of a radical move to restore the rule of law is that it offers both parties a principled basis for agreement.’
  • ‘There is the example she set, her very principled approach to life which she demonstrated, rather than preached.’
  • ‘It would help if the government actually knew what it wanted, and held a principled position one way or the other.’
  • ‘It is impossible to base principled politics on the ‘bad man’ theory of history.’
  • ‘As such cases show, if we give weight to both equality and utility, we have no principled way to assess their relative importance.’
  • ‘The following statements are admitted under the principled approach to hearsay.’
  • ‘If courts are to intervene by the imposition of public law standards upon a private body they must adopt a careful and principled approach.’
  • ‘But there are several reductions of arithmetic to set theory, and seemingly no principled way to decide between them.’
  • ‘The Greens support taking a principled approach to this legislation.’
  • ‘Worse, what is the principled basis by which we weight the importance of the properties in the bundle?’
  • ‘That should apply to all the parties seeking a principled accommodation.’
  • ‘One therefore has to decide which should be given priority in any given situation and one should do this in a principled way.’
  • ‘If he maintains such a principled approach in the subsequent campaign, I thought, he might even be able to turn public opinion around.’
  • ‘I think you have to deal with it in a bit more principled way than that.’
  • ‘It has won a considerable global readership as the result of its principled approach.’
  • ‘However, she said, she was taking a principled rather than a technical decision.’
  • ‘He has paid a significant price for his principled approach to politics.’
  • ‘This demonstrates again a pragmatic rather than a principled approach.’
  • ‘It says that there is no principled way to decide that some limitations on land use are takings and others are not.’
  • ‘These five justices have all the right in the world to have their own principled way of interpreting the constitution.’