Borrowed from Late Latin praeceptum, form of praecipiō ("to teach"), from Latin prae + capiō ("take").

• IPA: /ˈpɹiːsɛpt/

precept (plural precepts)

1. A rule or principle, especially one governing personal conduct.

   Precept guides, but example draws.

   • 2006, Theodore Dalrymple, The Gift of Language‎:

     I need hardly point out that Pinker doesn't really believe anything of what he writes, at least if example is stronger evidence of belief than precept.

2. (legal) A written command, especially a demand for payment.
3. (UK) An order issued by one local authority to another specifying the rate of tax to be charged on its behalf.
   1. A rate or tax set by a precept.
      • The Parish Council is financed by raising a small levy - the precept - on all residential properties within the parish.

• French: précepte
• German: Gebot, Vorschrift, Grundsatz, Maxime
• Italian: precetto
• Portuguese: preceito
• Russian: при́нцип
• Spanish: precepto

precept (precepts, present participle precepting; simple past and past participle precepted)

1. (intransitive, chiefly, US, medicine) To act as a preceptor; to teach a physician-in-training by supervising their clinical practice.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To teach (something) by precepts.
   • 1603 (date written), [Francis] Bacon, “Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature; with the Annotations of Hermes Stella. Chapter XI. The Chapter Immediately Following the Inventary; Being the 11th in Order, a Part thereof.”, in Robert Stephens, compiler, edited by [John Lockyer], Letters and Remains of the Lord Chancellor Bacon, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, published 1734, →OCLC ↗, page 411 ↗:

     [T]he tvvo commended rules by him [Aristotle] ſet down, vvhereby the axioms of Sciences are precepted to be made convertible, and vvhich the latter men have not vvithout elegancy ſurnamed; the one the rule of truth, becauſe it preventeth deceipt; the other the rule of prudence, becauſe it freeth election, are the ſame thing in ſpeculation and affirmation, vvhich vve novv obſerve.