What's the difference between principle and watchword?

Principle


Definition:

  • (n.) Beginning; commencement.
  • (n.) A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.
  • (n.) An original faculty or endowment.
  • (n.) A fundamental truth; a comprehensive law or doctrine, from which others are derived, or on which others are founded; a general truth; an elementary proposition; a maxim; an axiom; a postulate.
  • (n.) A settled rule of action; a governing law of conduct; an opinion or belief which exercises a directing influence on the life and behavior; a rule (usually, a right rule) of conduct consistently directing one's actions; as, a person of no principle.
  • (n.) Any original inherent constituent which characterizes a substance, or gives it its essential properties, and which can usually be separated by analysis; -- applied especially to drugs, plant extracts, etc.
  • (v. t.) To equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet, or rule of conduct, good or ill.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Stress is laid on certain principles of diagnostic research in the event of extra-suprarenal pheochromocytomas.
  • (2) However, as the same task confronts the Lib Dems, do we not now have a priceless opportunity to bring the two parties together to undertake a fundamental rethink of the way social democratic principles and policies can be made relevant to modern society.
  • (3) To a supporter at the last election like me – someone who spoke alongside Nick Clegg at the curtain-raiser event for the party conference during the height of Labour's onslaught on civil liberties, and was assured privately by two leaders that the party was onside about civil liberties – this breach of trust and denial of principle is astonishing.
  • (4) The White House denied there had been an agreement, but said it was open in principle to such negotations.
  • (5) Using the MTT assay and analyzing the data using the median-effect principle, we showed that synergistic cytotoxic interactions exist between CDDP and VM in their liposomal form.
  • (6) The heretofore "permanently and totally disabled versus able-bodied" principle in welfare reforms is being abbandoned.
  • (7) The binding follows the principle of isotope dilution in the physiologic range of vitamin B12 present in human serum.
  • (8) The principle of the liquid and solid two-phase radioimmunoassay and its application to measuring the concentrations of triiodothyronine and thyroxine of human serum in a single sample at the same time are described in this paper.
  • (9) Spectrophotometric tests for the presence of a lysozyme-like principle in the serum also revealed similar trends with a significant loss of enzyme activity in 2,4,5-T-treated insects.
  • (10) All these strains produced an enterotoxic principle, antigenically related to cholera coli family of enterotoxins, as detected by latex agglutination and immuno-dot-blot tests.
  • (11) The basic principle of the resonant tool, its adaptation for surgery, the experimental results of its use in animals, and clinical experience are reported.
  • (12) It seems tragic, then, that so little of these principles transfer over to the container in which the work is done.
  • (13) This conception of the city as an expression of both regal power and social order, guided by cosmological principles and the pursuit of yin-yang equilibrium, was unlike anything in the western tradition.
  • (14) The general principles of bypass surgery as they affect the cerebral circulation are reviewed.
  • (15) The interest of this view resides in the resulting general principle of classification and interpretation of all forms of disease, giving rise to an "existenialistic pathology".
  • (16) Eight of the UK's biggest supermarkets have signed up to a set of principles following concerns that they were "failing to operate within the spirit of the law" over special offers and promotions for food and drink, the Office of Fair Trading has said.
  • (17) Although the general guiding principle of pharmacotherapy for anxiety disorders--the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time--remains, this rule should not interfere with the judicious use of medications as long as the benefits justify it.
  • (18) In older stages, the cervical joints rotate according to geometric and lever arm principles.
  • (19) Spain’s constitutional court responded by unanimously ruling that the legislation had ignored and infringed the rules of the 1978 constitution , adding that the “principle of democracy cannot be considered to be separate from the unconditional primacy of the constitution”.
  • (20) The principles and practice of aneasthesia for patients having coronary bypass grafts are discussed.

Watchword


Definition:

  • (n.) A word given to sentinels, and to such as have occasion to visit the guards, used as a signal by which a friend is known from an enemy, or a person who has a right to pass the watch from one who has not; a countersign; a password.
  • (n.) A sentiment or motto; esp., one used as a rallying cry or a signal for action.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He poses a far greater risk to our security than any other Labour leader in my lifetime September 12, 2015 “Security” appears to be the new watchword of Cameron’s government – it was used six times by the prime minister in an article attacking Corbyn in the Times late last month, and eight times by the chancellor, George Osborne, in an article published in the Sun the following day.
  • (2) Individualism – the assertion of every person’s claim to maximised private freedom and the unrestrained liberty to express autonomous desires … became the leftwing watchword of the hour.” The result was an astonishing liberation: from millennia of social, gender and sexual control by powerful, mostly elderly men.
  • (3) That will be the watchword of David Cameron’s Tories next week.
  • (4) The mantra of "fewer, better" will become a watchword across the BBC's output – as will collaboration with other broadcasters: a reinvented Call The Midwife is relocated to the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
  • (5) Instead of being held captive to words such as "rational suicide" or "euthanasia", what is needed is an acceptance of more contemporary watchwords such as autonomy and self-determination.
  • (6) The watchwords are suitably commercial: “strategic commissioning”, “market-making”, and “brand protection”.
  • (7) In private, the watchword remains "Hamburger Hill", the brutal 80s Vietnam war film named because Vietnamese bullets turned human flesh into hamburger meat.
  • (8) Indeed, "choice and control" have been watchwords espoused by politicians of all hues since the mid-90s.
  • (9) It would seem unlikely that Germany would countenance any of these measures in any way, and for that reason caution remains the watchword.
  • (10) Count the number of times you hear the chancellor and prime minister say “security”, their watchword and their excuse for all they mean to do, from brutal spending cuts to purchasing an armoury of foreign military hardware.
  • (11) Shopping will change beyond recognition, with “ hyper showrooming ” the watchword – shops will become “emotional destinations”, products hidden away behind digital screens, and heavily tailored to individual taste, guided by algorithms and ultimately our own prior behaviour.
  • (12) Patience, not aggression, has been the watchword of law enforcement ever since.
  • (13) Ruthlessness has become the network owners' watchword now, because the mobile phone boom they have ridden for nearly 20 years is over.
  • (14) Caution was the watchword, and both coaches were unapologetic.
  • (15) Security” is Cameron’s current watchword – “for families, for the country” – but there is no security for families forever on short private leases.
  • (16) The traditional core service in most places is essential support with personal care for people with long-term health and care needs, where the watchword is continuity of relationships, reliability and dignity.
  • (17) "Reform" was their watchword and they had one new article of faith: that the best proof of any leader's bona fides was the habit of loudly defining themselves against their own side.
  • (18) Except for a few tweaks that generally resonate more at home than with Germany's European and international partners (such as requiring the government to be more transparent concerning arms exports to autocratic regimes), continuity and caution will remain the watchwords of German foreign and security policy.
  • (19) One understanding holds "Benghazi" as a watchword for government malfeasance.
  • (20) "[We] propose a 'new union for fairness' whose watchwords are power-sharing, diversity and constitutional partnership, replacing the old union of centralisation, uniformity and Westminster's undivided sovereignty."