number one vs principal

number one

noun
  • The most important person, the one who is in charge. 

  • The main goalkeeper of a team, so-called because they wear the number 1 on the back of their kit. 

  • Urine; urination. 

  • A large town where theatrical performances may expect to achieve success. 

  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see number, one. 

  • Oneself, being considered foremost, as by an egoist. 

  • Someone who is top of a ranking, who is ranked first. 

  • The batsman who opens the batting. 

  • The single that has sold the most in a given period. 

  • A first lieutenant. 

adj
  • First; foremost; best, often used after its headword. 

principal

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

  • 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 primary participant in a crime. 

  • 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 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 number one and principal occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )