PRECEPT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does precept mean? 

• PRECEPT (noun)
  The noun PRECEPT has 2 senses:

1. rule of personal conduct

2. a doctrine that is taught

  Familiarity information: PRECEPT used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PRECEPT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Rule of personal conduct

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

precept; principle

Hypernyms ("precept" is a kind of...):

prescript; rule (prescribed guide for conduct or action)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "precept"):

higher law (a principle that takes precedent over the laws of society)

moral principle (the principle that conduct should be moral)

hypothetical imperative (a principle stating the action required to attain a desired goal)

caveat emptor (a commercial principle that without a warranty the buyer takes upon himself the risk of quality)

Holonyms ("precept" is a part of...):

ethic; ethical code (a system of principles governing morality and acceptable conduct)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A doctrine that is taught

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

commandment; precept; teaching

Context example:

he believed all the Christian precepts

Hypernyms ("precept" is a kind of...):

doctrine; ism; philosophical system; philosophy; school of thought (a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "precept"):

Golden Rule (a command based on Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount)

mitsvah; mitzvah ((Judaism) a precept or commandment of the Jewish law)

 Context examples 

How much of the practice I have just reduced to precept, I owe to Agnes, I will not repeat here.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Among them moved Aylward and other of the older soldiers, with a few whispered words of precept here and of warning there.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

These, and a thousand other reformations, I firmly counted upon by your encouragement; as indeed they were plainly deducible from the precepts delivered in my book.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she conform to the world so openly—here in an evangelical, charitable establishment—as to wear her hair one mass of curls?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion to his situation, she was emboldened to go on; and feeling in herself the right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, they affected me visibly.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In front stood the bow-men, ten deep, with a fringe of under-officers, who paced hither and thither marshalling the ranks with curt precept or short rebuke.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Pray bring to your mind how often I desired you to consider, when you insisted on the motive of public good, that the Yahoos were a species of animals utterly incapable of amendment by precept or example: and so it has proved; for, instead of seeing a full stop put to all abuses and corruptions, at least in this little island, as I had reason to expect; behold, after above six months warning, I cannot learn that my book has produced one single effect according to my intentions.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said, like stalwart soldiers.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)