adjective
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generous or lavish
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of, belonging to, or characteristic of a prince
adverb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of princely
Explanation
Something princely is controlled by or suits a prince, like a princely territory or a princely velvet cape. If a prince (a male royal, often the son of a king or queen) rules certain areas, they are princely territories. And if a prince wears certain clothes, you could say he sports a princely outfit. You can also use this adjective to mean "fancy" or "opulent," so you might describe the princely furnishings in your elegant hotel room or the princely offerings on the menu at a four-star restaurant.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They had assiduously saved the cash that came in from gifts and summer jobs, and it had compounded over time to reach a princely sum.
From MarketWatch ● May 5, 2026
The then town council cobbled together the money to buy the model for the "princely sum of £3,000", he added.
From BBC ● Apr. 12, 2026
Before its complete demise, it was almost brought to the Indian princely state of Hyderabad, where it could have taken root.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 4, 2026
Once part of the erstwhile princely state of Mysore, it was known as "garden city" or a "pensioner's paradise".
From Barron's ● Nov. 27, 2025
He had told everyone that his father was the igwe of his hometown, and had sent him to Lagos to live with an uncle until he turned twenty-one, to avoid the pressures of princely life.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Further to add to the complexity, he loved his liberty; he was princelier free; he had more subjects, more slaves; he ruled arrogantly in the world of women; he was more himself.
From The Egoist by George Meredith
But I am of a greater and princelier house than the Sons of the Cat.
From Salute to Adventurers by John Buchan
Nearly all the houses had vegetable gardens, and some of them had flower-gardens that appeared princelier pleasaunces to my boy than he has ever seen since in Europe or America.
From A Boy's Town by William Dean Howells
Nay, if we compare Pope to some of the later writers who have wrung still princelier rewards from fortune, the result is not unfavourable.
From Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) by Sir Leslie Stephen
For one fleeting night a princelier nature captures us, and we become as great as our aspirations.
From The World I Live In by Helen Keller
The shade of the princeliest hero dwelling there the 1 Georg. lib. i.
From The Destiny of the Soul A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life by William Rounseville Alger
And yet, in this princeliest of cities so to be selected by the noblest citizens as worthy of highest privilege, argues, methinks conclusively, an excellence forerunning exercise of rule.
From Agesilaus by Henry Graham Dakyns
He was at his princeliest estate—never would he be handsomer.
From Rose of Dutcher's Coolly by Hamlin Garland
If Kemble was the ideal Coriolanus and Henry V., he was too kingly as Hamlet, and Booth is the princeliest Hamlet that ever trod the stage.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 by Various
Harkness, true to his boast, had found quite the straightest, princeliest balsam in the nearby woods.
From Red-Robin by Harriet Roosevelt Richards
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
