"first principles" meaning in English

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun form"
      },
      "expansion": "first principles",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "88 12",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "86 14",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English pluralia tantum",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "94 6",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "88 12",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "form_of": [
        {
          "word": "first principle"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "plural of first principle"
      ],
      "id": "en-first_principles-en-noun-~AzczdpN",
      "links": [
        [
          "first principle",
          "first principle#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "form-of",
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "first principles"
}

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "first principles pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              53,
              69
            ]
          ],
          "text": "The rules and regulations don't answer the question. First principles are required.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              393,
              409
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Introduction” (chapter 1), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 18–19:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              244,
              260
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "[2025 June 2, Adrian Horton, “Tech-bro satire Mountainhead is an insufferable disappointment”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
          "text": "Mountainhead 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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The set of basic statements on which a method, theory, or organisation is founded."
      ],
      "id": "en-first_principles-en-noun-fp2FAusY",
      "links": [
        [
          "found",
          "found"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "axiom"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "first principles"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English non-lemma forms",
    "English noun forms",
    "English nouns",
    "English pluralia tantum",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun form"
      },
      "expansion": "first principles",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "form_of": [
        {
          "word": "first principle"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "plural of first principle"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "first principle",
          "first principle#English"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "form-of",
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "first principles"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English non-lemma forms",
    "English noun forms",
    "English nouns",
    "English pluralia tantum",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "first principles pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "axiom"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              53,
              69
            ]
          ],
          "text": "The rules and regulations don't answer the question. First principles are required.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              393,
              409
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Introduction” (chapter 1), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 18–19:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              244,
              260
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "[2025 June 2, Adrian Horton, “Tech-bro satire Mountainhead is an insufferable disappointment”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
          "text": "Mountainhead 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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The set of basic statements on which a method, theory, or organisation is founded."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "found",
          "found"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "first principles"
}

{
  "called_from": "form_description/20250107",
  "msg": "Form tags without form: desc='plural plural-only', tagsets=[('plural', 'plural-only')]",
  "path": [
    "first principles"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "first principles",
  "trace": ""
}