follower vs principal

follower

noun
  • A pursuer. 

  • A metal piece placed at the top of a candle to keep the wax melting evenly. 

  • One who is a part of master's physical group, such as a servant or retainer. 

  • A tool used to remove the core from a pin-tumbler lock without causing the driver pins and springs to fall out. 

  • Any of the three players (the ruckman, ruck rover, and rover) who usually follow the ball around the ground rather than occupying a fixed position. 

  • An imitator, who follows another's example. 

  • A machine part receiving motion from another. 

  • An account holder who subscribes to see content from another account on a social media platform. 

  • One who follows, comes after another. 

  • A man courting a maidservant; suitor. 

  • Something that comes after another thing. 

  • One who follows mentally, adherer to the opinions, ideas or teachings of another, a movement etc. 

  • Young cattle. 

principal

noun
  • The primary participant in a crime. 

  • The chief administrator of a school. 

  • A diapason, a type of organ stop on a pipe organ. 

  • The construction that gives shape and strength to a roof, generally a truss of timber or iron; or, loosely, the most important member of a piece of framing. 

  • A dancer at the highest rank within a professional dance company, particularly a ballet company. 

  • The first two long feathers of a hawk's wing. 

  • A security principal. 

  • A legal person that authorizes another (the agent) to act on their behalf; or on whose behalf an agent or gestor in a negotiorum gestio acts. 

  • The chief executive and chief academic officer of a university or college. 

  • The money originally invested or loaned, on which basis interest and returns are calculated. 

  • A partner or owner of a business. 

  • One of the turrets or pinnacles of waxwork and tapers with which the posts and centre of a funeral hearse were formerly crowned 

adj
  • Chosen or assumed among a branch of possible values of a multi-valued function so that the function is single-valued. 

  • Primary; most important; first level in importance. 

How often have the words follower and principal occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )