Principal Syndrome

A situation in a person, in the act of harm preventing, will side with bad people and force good people to back down or be punished to prevent harm or get rid of conflict. It comes from the idea of a school principal, who is practicing harm prevention, and so can only make rules, shame or appease. Shame and rules do not work on the bully but work on the good kids and since it takes two to fight, he gets the good kid to back down there by ending the fight and stopping harm.

The result is good people are punished and bad people are rewarded.
Jake suffers from principal syndrome when he wants normal people to surrender their guns instead of going after the criminals who use guns unlawfully.
by cb750 July 16, 2023
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What a grade-school student tells someone as a reason for his unwillingness to perform a requested action; it means dat while he personally would not mind doing it, he is afraid dat "da big man in dat dreaded upstairs office" would disapprove, and thus he would give him major grief if he found out.
One sixth-grade boy conversing with another on da playground: Sorry, Dude --- I can't slip you a textbook in class to help you get a better grade on your test; it's the principal of the thing."
by QuacksO February 03, 2023
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Talk to the principal

When a coworker tells on you and the boss calls you into their office to talk to them; Refers to the way kids have to talk to the principal when they get in trouble and makes fun of the way that the tattle tales are being childish.
Someone snitched on me, now I’ve got to go talk to the principal.
by SiL3Nt J September 12, 2023
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Principaling

When you are doing the job of a principal without the title of being a principal.
One day of principaling and the superintendent quit her job!
by Sassafras202951 May 28, 2021
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pay off the principal

Not to be confused with the shrewdly-prudent and virtuously-responsible practice of diligently settling your bills "up front and in full" and therefore carrying a zero balance (i.e., your "principle") on your credit card each month to avoid interest-fees, this term refers to the decidedly UNWISE and UNFAIR act of BRIBING (i.e., "paying off") the head-honcho at an establishment of learning (i.e., the "principal"), so that he'll kiss-buttingly bow to your outrageous stipulations and/or preferentially pull strings on your behalf, often to the detriment of others in the school.
Probably Ethan Couch's absurdly-indulgent father initially tried to pay off the principal so that his spoiled-a** Little Prince could be coddled and given unduly-preferential treatment, but then when this failed, he upped the ante by threatening to buy the entire school just so that Ethan could be tutored the way HE preferred him to be.
by QuacksO August 22, 2018
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Princip

Princip is a word used whenever you get something for free or for a discounted value. That thing becomes princip.
by sjidjsidjsdksadosak February 18, 2019
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