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
Yes, you can enjoy the principality of Monaco, with its casinos, yachts and Grand Prix, without a princely budget.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 10, 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
The stripping of a princely title is so rare in British royal-legal history that the last person it happened to was Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, Earl of Armagh.
From BBC ● Oct. 31, 2025
Philip was the youngest, the most princely, and the one furthest removed from his father.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
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
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
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
But I am of a greater and princelier house than the Sons of the Cat.
From Salute to Adventurers by John Buchan
No house in Venice had held this right for more generations; no house was princelier in its bearing, nor more superbly republican!
From A Golden Book of Venice by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
Yes; by your pleasure, Poetry is Thought, in princeliest attire, Treading a measure.
From A Book of Epigrams 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
What are the princeliest of them beside the fiery halls of Tir-na-noge and the flame-built cities of the Gods?
From AE in the Irish Theosophist by George William Russell
Madam," said the professor, with his princeliest smile, "the true Art cannot fail.
From Strictly business: more stories of the four million by O. Henry
Did not that position make him a sort of master, at any rate far superior to the princeliest puppet?
From The Cost by David Graham Phillips
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.
