Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch’s or former monarch’s family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess. The English word derives, via the French word prince, from the Latin noun princeps, from primus (first) + capio (to seize), meaning “the chief, most distinguished, ruler, prince”.
The Latin word prīnceps (older Latin *prīsmo-kaps, literally “the one who takes the first [place/position]”), became the usual title of the informal leader of the Roman senate some centuries before the transition to empire, the princeps senatus.
Emperor Augustus established the formal position of monarch on the basis of principate, not dominion. He also tasked his grandsons as summer rulers of the city when most of the government were on holiday in the country or attending religious rituals, and, for that task, granted them the title of princeps.
The title has generic and substantive meanings:
The original,…